Kal Penn

There's a lot that can be said for someone who hasn't before ever done serious beltway work jumping in with both feet... especially among a community as diverse and unique as young voters. So I was sad to see that Kalpen Modi was on his way out.

"I think for most young folks who I'm talking to, it doesn't matter if they're on the left or the right, the issues that they cared about were the same," he said. "It is a kind of bummer if you look at the score keeping on the Hill ... and what we have been focusing on is getting folks on the same page, focusing on the solutions."

I'm a pretty big score keeper when it comes to the outreach I wish the White House had done to young people. This isn't necessarily to do with the Public Liaison's office its more on policy issues. You've heard me say before that the only demographic that supported and continued to support the President during the horrible TeaBagger Summer of 2009 was young people but we were never brought in to be advocates on HCR. The same could be said about the energy bill - except it was non-profit groups that did the proper outreach to youth.

Kalpen Modi's outreach has been good. He's done what the OPL does best - they do outreach and round tables and discussions and people discuss. It just doesn't translate into communications messaging, event outreach, or press that trickles down to the college newspaper level.

"Our office doesn't handle policy, but we help bridge the gap between policies," Penn explained. "So if there's a group that's particularly concerned with an issue, and they want to bring in 10 or 12 folks, we'll put them in a room with some of our policy team and they'll link up that way."

Therein lies the problem. I wish Kalpen was experienced and more schooled in these areas so that we could have put him in a policy role so you'd have a youth advocate among those folks. Because this team of people seems so far removed from the struggles facing young people that it's caused a lot of problems when it comes to messaging to young people or making them into advocates for the President's political agenda.

He touches briefly on this in the video above but he also says that a lot of people assumed that change would happen immediately - we would see immediate results like a switch is flicked. Kalpen says it doesn't work that way. And he's right. In our generation we're use to immediate results, immediate interaction, quick now quick now.... Government doesn't work that way - in fact it's the antithesis of how government works works. But as much as I would like to see immediate results - it's probably a good idea that it doesn't work that way otherwise any yahoo could come on there and sink our government into complete terror and destruction. Luckily it took Bush 8 years to do that. It's going to take some time to fix unfortunately. I just wish the WH would consider young people to be an ally in that fight

Obama surrogate Kal Penn (aka Kumar) wrote an open letter to the three remaining undeclared superdelegates from YDA and CDA in the Huffington Post yesterday. He didn't pull any punches. The piece calls out the College Dems for ineffectual work:

Young voters are mobilized for Barack in some of the most unlikely places. I'm reminded of a very moving event at the largely conservative Miami University of Ohio several weeks back; Ranked as the 4th least diverse school in the nation by the Princeton Review, our surrogate rally drew 500 students -- a large number of whom showed up with handmade "Obama '08" signs. The College Democrats on campus were blown away, having never seen more than small double-digit attendance at any of their general meetings. These several hundred students, a great many of whom were conservative Republicans, came to learn more about Barack Obama and left that night as supporters. I ask you not to deny them the opportunity to support the Democratic Party.

And says that failure to declare for Obama now will hurt the credibility of young people and neuter their voice in the process:

Perhaps three weeks ago was not the right time to pledge. But neither is three weeks from now. Your failure to pledge now risks returning those passionate, first-time voters to a political landscape of the same old games that caused them to maintain such distance from the Democratic Party before. If you are being pressured by others to wait until later in May or June to pledge, please be aware that you risk hurting the majority of folks who have made their clear choice in Senator Obama. I work with them every day. These young voters were mobilized because of a belief in their ability to change the game-playing Washington establishment politics that has failed them for so long. You may be reluctant to endorse because you are DNC officers, but you have a mandate from scores of young voters to pledge now. As the future of the Democratic Party, they look up to you. Please don't let the system fail them again. This should not be about party politics and should not be about insider loyalties. This is about the constituents you represent, and their inclusion and involvement for years to come.

Your failure to pledge now also risks denying young, first-time voters the very things for which they have supported the Democratic Party now: universal health care, access to education, freedom from war, a sustainable environment, fair, unionized jobs, and serious, long-term economic solutions. Please don't risk pledging too late and hurting their credibility.

I tend to agree with Penn, but, as a Democratic partisan, I would go further. Not only does a failure to endorse in the face of overwhelming support from young people hurt those young people that YDA and CDA represent, but it does potentially grave damage to the credibility of YDA and CDA as organizations. It damages their credibilty as representatives of youth in our political process. After 4 years in which youth organizers worked to gain the respect of the political establishment, loss of that respect from the Party, from the activist class, and from our peers is the worst possible outcome.

David, Lauren and Awais, you should endorse now.