Hip Hop Caucus

First some youthy news:

• Two articles are out today on polling. The Michigan Messenger does a great job analyzing a PEW study on the demographics of cell-only and "cell-mostly" users and how pollsters are dealing with under-represtentation of these demographics in their polling. If that's a little too data-geek for you, Campus Politico has a good "polling 101" story that might be a little more your speed.
• At Tapped, Tim Fernholz questions the effectiveness of a voter registration drive launched this week by the Hip Hop Caucus.
• Matt Zeitlin at PushBack follows up on that post, noting that celebrities are not an effective way to move young voters to the polls.
• Teaming up with SPIN, CMJ, and others, Head Count has launched a 90 day voter registration challenge. They hope to register 100,000 voters by the end of the 90 days. You can watch a video of SPIN at the Warped Tour interviewing an artist about the program here.
• NDN notes Connecticut Democrats are out-registering Republicans among young voters by 4.3 - 1. That registration and turnout advantage might help Democrats defeat Republican Chris Shays in the fall. Shays is the lone Republican congressman in New England.
• South Carolina young Republicans are not feeling the love from John McCain, and Young Republicans nationally are having a tough time drawing young people to the convention.
• Meanwhile, Young Democrats are thriving in delegate-rich Florida.
• Tech President argues that 2008 is a boring year in tech/politics. While 2004 and '06 saw huge paradigm shifts in how we organize, 2008 is all about refining those practices.

Some less-youthy, but very interesting news:

• Democrats are getting ready to spend $20 million to register and GOTV latinos.
• The Nation writes about MoveOn's 10th birthday and how far the organization has come.
• A new study by the RAND Corporation tells us the obvious - to win the war on terror, we need to stop fighting the war on terror.
• Finally, the Washington Post has a front-page story basically calling "liar liar pants on fire" on the McCain campaign for their latest ad attacking Sen. Obama.

• Speak of the Devil. Just a few days after I posted about MTV airing attack ads on Obama, MoveOn counters with their own positive ad on the network. It's awesome that they're countering so quickly, but truth be told, I'm not at all wowed by the ad and found it pretty easy to tune out. Judge for yourself and let me know what you think:
• Wiretap has the lowdown on a panel on the youth vote organized by the good people at S.A.V.E. Tom Friedman was on the panel, apparently making only slightly less of an ass out of himself. Dispatch Politics has more.
• The Miami Herald profiles Party Politics, a Drinking Liberally style company down in Florida that is engaging young people at nightclubs using open-bar mixers.
• The Chronicle of Higher Educaction throws some legitimate cold water on Obama mania and what it means for long-term civic engagement.
• Fox News reveals that McCain has youth chairs in 30 states. Here's my question: what the hell are they all doing?
• Just how much of your salary each year goes to Iraq? Progressive Future has a new widget that will tell you, along with what else that money could have bought.
• Non profits in New Mexico are fighting back against harsh election laws that restrict their work and discourage voter registration.
• The Hip Hop Caucus is launching a voter registration drive.
• The National Hip Hop Political Convention is this week in Las Vegas. I'm working on getting someone to live blog. Hopefully that will work out.
• Broadband penetration will hit 77% by 2012. So long digital divide . . .
• The GOP now has an Obama smear site set up to look like Facebook. It might be clever if People for the American Way hadn't already done the same thing to the GOP primary candidates almost a year ago.

Diddy weighs in on Obama's win:

I've got some severely conflicted feelings about this. On the one hand, there's no arguing with the thoughts and sentiments expressed here, and I don't doubt that Diddy means what he says in this video. But on the other hand, I've got a somewhat jaded response because, as far as I know, Diddy hasn't put a dime into this election cycle.

Diddy dropped a ton of money on getting out the youth vote in the last election cycle. Primarily a media campaign, "Vote or Die" hijacked the youth message in the media and it disappeared the day after the election, leaving nothing behind - not local chapters, not organizers, and not even a list for other organizations to build upon. For whatever good it did (and that is highly debatable), at the end of the day Vote or Die represents a huge waste of time and energy that built little of lasting import for the constituencies it tried to empower.

This truly is an historic election and he could play a huge part in it. A lot of groups are picking up the ball that Diddy himself dropped. The Hip Hop Caucus, The League, The National Hip Hop Political Convention - all are working to make sure young people of color are engaged this year. If Diddy is serious, he should be helping these groups and helping Obama make the most of this historic opportunity. If he means what he says, it's time to step into the ring.

Here's a few of the stories and blog posts that clogged up my inbox and RSS Reader this weekend while I was taking a break in the Big Easy:

• WireTap digs in and pushes back against McCain's claims of courting the youth vote
• CREW reports that the DC Attorney General continues to harass Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, this time for a peaceful protest of the war held late last year. The Rev. faces disorderly conduct charges. A similar, previous complaint by the DC AG against Rev. Yearwood was dropped.
• In the Politico, Ben Adler reports on the Catherine Rampell WaPo Op-Ed, noting that the youth vote was trending up long before Sen. Obama's campaign.
• Finally, Stephan Colbert interviewed Clay Shirky about his new book, Here Comes Everybody, a great primer for how social technologies are changing they dynamics and limits of group action.