Cultural Outreach

This came to my inbox yesterday while I was on the road:

And they wonder why Sen. Clinton isn't doing well with young voters . . . Maybe this is catty, but c'mon. Elton John? The Clinton campaign knows I'm a young supporter. I'm signed up on Hill Blazers. They have my cell phone number. There's no way you could have filtered me out of this appeal? Really? This is an old person's appeal (no offense to my elders), but they obviously view it as a youth draw since Chelsea is the one promoting it. To top it all off, it's not even an event in support of Clinton. It's a request for supporters to donate more money, on the off-chance that they'll win the tix.

All of this leads me to believe that the Clinton Campaign does not understand cultural outreach. This is as tone-deaf as it gets.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama is partying with OK Go and talking about Net Neutrality:

• The Mitt Romney campaign is asking their supporters to take materials provided on the Romney for President website and remix them into campaign videos. Well, the folks on the Slate political and video teams have taken this opportunity and used it to poke fun at Romney, who once equated his 5 sons' work on his campaign to the service of our soldiers in Iraq.

• The Obama campaign has started to adopt some cultural outreach tactics. Volunteers from Bay-area schools recently set up shop outside a local music festival.
• Millennial blogger and Yale student Zach Marks compares Democratic and Republican outreach to young voters on the campaign trail in this column over at Huffington Post.
• Congress may have passed the College Cost Reduction Act, but it looks like increases in Pell Grants are still no sure thing.

Update: Note the correction on the cost/registration data below.
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Last week, I reported that Punk Voter and Music for America would both be seriously scaling back their operations in 2008 - a huge loss as those two organizations together accounted for more than 2/3 of all music and politics events in 2004 (over 2,400 events). Together, those organizations spent almost 3 million dollars on young voter outreach and education, and they had paid national staff.

At the same time, Head Count, an all-volunteer effort in the Jam Band community operated a much more efficient organization that registered almost 50,000 voters for just under $150,000. Headcount worked with over 40 headlining acts at approximately 500 shows in 2004.

In 2006, as part of theirs "Midterm Matters Tour," HeadCount, registered 8,500 jam band fans at 30 events including Bonnaroo, Phil Lesh/Trey Anastasio's tour, and a dozen dates with the Dave Matthews Band. And they did it for less than $30,000, only ~$21,000 of which was spent before the registration deadline. That's $2.50 per registration half of what it costs to run a traditional field canvass ($10.40 per contact (pdf). - which is on the low-end for voter registration work.

This week I spoke with co-chair Andy Bernstein about how they did it.

Cross posted at MyDD

I'm a little embarrassed that I found out about this from the Midday Open Thread over at Daily Kos, but Linkin Park has a new video (left) that's got a political/social edge to it. I loathe Linkin Park, and there's a lot that's not great about this video - there's no coherent thread connecting the various social and political problems it depicts, and there's no "ask" or action item at the end. In short, it's no Mosh (right), but its encouraging to see nonetheless. At this time in 2003, artists were petrified of getting entangled in politics, and a video like this - as unfocused as it is - would have been unthinkable.

Seeing this video got me thinking, who will Rock the Vote in 2008?

In 2004, music played a huge role in generating excitement and interest around the election, and turning out young voters for the Democrats. At least half a dozen organizations used music events or music communities to organize young voters - Music for America, Punk Voter, Head Count, Concerts for Change/Kerry, Vote for Change, Rock the Vote. I'm sure I'm leaving out a ton of local acts, but these were the big players.

It's not a big secret that most of the folks who hang around Future Majority are either Edwards or Obama supporters. But if Future Majority really is going to be ground zero for the progressive youth movement in the blogosphere and a think tank on youth outreach for progressive campaigns, we can't exclude a serious look at Hillary Clinton from our discussions.

A March poll of 1,300 18-24 years olds showed that Obama leads the youth demographic overall with 35%, but Hillary trails closely with 29% (meanwhile, Edwards may as well be relegated to the second tier among young voters, coming in with only 9%). And a March poll (pdf) by Young Voter Strategies and Women's Voices Women Vote showed Clinton with a substantial lead over Obama among Millennial women - 26% to 13%. PEW data posted by Chris Bowers while examining his "Clinton Inflated Poll Theory," bears this out: Obama leads among 18-29 overall, but Hillary seems to have an advantage among women.

I've heard anecdotal evidence suggesting that young women are inspired by the prospect of a women president, but turned off personally by Hillary, but the numbers seem to show again and again that she has a base of support among Millennial women, and she's highly competitive overall among young voters.

In terms of how that support is manifesting in the grassroots, a student operation - Students for Hillary - is starting to get off the ground, but that's about all some quick googling turns up (Interestingly, WomenforHillary.com redirects to Barack Obama's website). She's #2 among Democratic candidates on the social networking sites (behind Barack, but ahead of all the Republican candidates combined). Beyond that, there's not a whole lot out there. Nothing on her site about youth outreach (though other candidates don't have readily apparent youth areas either) or links to any grassroots efforts.

Time Magazine is reporting that Hillary is retooling her strategy in light of Obama's fundraising successes, and some of the new outreach efforts look like maybe an attempt to reach younger supporters ($100 Party on the Pier fundraisers). In all honesty, this seems more like McCain's new program than a savvy way to reach young supporters (who probably can't drop a hundred large on a candidate), but its another thing to consider.

None of this is to make definitive judgments on Hillary's youth outreach. It will take a lot more investigation on my part before I'm ready to really start talking critically about Hillary's youth outreach or the strength of her grassroots. This is all just to say that there are signs - some positive, some negative - of Hillary's strength among Millennials, and we have to include Hillary in our discussions here on Future Majority.

Worth checking out:

• TPM Cafe has a great article about expanding youth outreach into high schools, as well as links to some best practices and real-world examples.
• Future Majority friend and Living Liberally founder Justin Krebs spoke to the College Democrats about incorporating social and cultural interaction into their program and strategy. The Nation has the highlights from the New York State College Democrats Convention.
• While Justin is talking about socializing political communities, Matt Stoller of MyDD is talking about the potential in politicizing cultural communities like BoingBoing around progressive issues.
• Poor Dick Cheney. Even in blood red Utah they hate him. Check out this video of the BYU student protest of Cheney's commencement address (and watch how the school administration tries to suppress their dissent).
• Finally, because I promised, here's the video of "Gravel's Greatest Hits" from the Democratic Debate in South Carolina:

Your national security state at work.

From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities. A police report on an organization of artists called Bands Against Bush noted that the group was planning concerts on Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets, the report said, there would be political speeches and videos.

“Activists are showing a well-organized network made up of anti-Bush sentiment; the mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda,” said the report, dated Oct. 9, 2003. “Police departments in above listed areas have been contacted regarding this event.”

It wouldn't surprise me to find MFA, myself, or people I know in those files. Sometimes thinking about where we're at as a country can get a little abstract. Seeing Bands Against Bush listed in this article today hit me a lot harder than a blog or article about the latest administration scandal ever could.

The other day, I interviewed Matt Singer of Forward Montana and Left in the West as part of the research for my book. Matt has done impressive work in Montana, a state that is seriously trending blue due to the rise of Millennials as a percentage of the electorate (17% in 2006 vs. 13% nationally). Matt and about 15 other young Montanans (?) created Forward Montana on a shoestring budget in late 2004 as part of the ".org boom" - the explosion of youth run and youth focused groups that were created during the 2003/2004 campaign cycle. With a lot of volunteer work, some smart tactics, and some new grant money, they are turning Forward Montana into a sustainable organization for Millennial Generation political activism.

During our conversation, Matt said two things that I've been chewing on for the past two days.