mccain

Bumped. --Craig

Crossposted at Young People For

One of my fellow YP4 Leadership Academy participants and myself attended the debate watch party last night hosted by San Francisco for Obama. We predicted that McCain would address the audience and viewers at home as "friends" (even though he should be talking directly with Obama out of respect and given that it's a debate), and Obama would share his "hope" for the country by bringing "change" to Washington. Nevertheless, additional phrases/terms were added to the pot: "Wall Street v. Main Street," "strategy v. tactic," and how about that "bracelet"?

After the debate, I listened to various analysts and read blogs and editorials representing different parts of the political spectrum. One commentator summed up the debate as a competition between experience and judgment, which is a salient point. While I honor and pay my respects to McCain and his military service as a POW, his experience doesn't necessarily guarantee he makes sound military/national defense and security judgment. His initial and continued support of the war in Iraq is a case in point.

I began to discuss the debate with my parents earlier this afternoon, and my father was already looking forward to seeing the first (and only) VP debate next week. Once again, I thought about this theme of experience and judgment. I was particularly taking a closer look at McCain's VP selection, Gov. Palin, and reconsidering if such a move was strategic or tragic?

While her identities as a hockey mom and Washington outsider might have intially appealed to disgruntled Clinton supporters and helped McCain with the "women vote," how long will the postive craze over Palin last? When will more of the public, particularly those who are eligible and registered to vote, be made aware of Palin's judgment as mayor of Wasila to bill sexual assault victims for the cost of rape kits and forensic exams? Biden, in contrast, drafted the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, in which he included "provisions to make states ineligible for federal grant money if they charged rape victims for exams and the kits containing the medical supplies needed to conduct them." McCain voted against Biden's initiative. Again, a question of judgment.

The more I listen to Palin and observe her resort back to her talking points when posed with questions on foreign policy (as in the case of the interview with Katie Couric), I worry that she would be second-in-command to the oldest first-term U.S. president.

Palin: strategic or tragic? And for whom?

Maybe you've had a sit-in. Or taken part in a teach-in. Well, now, you can join a "lie-in."

Which is probably a less absurd phrase than a "nose-in" -- even though the concept is about that absurdity level.

You see, folks have decided it's time to call the McCain-Palin ticket out on their lies. And what better way to do that than with long, rubbery noses.

They call it Pinocchio Politics. If McCain's going to have a speak-no-truth approach to campaigning, these Pinocchio Posses are going to point it out...with their noses.

Seriously, it's a weird idea; an entertaining website; and it might even become a catchy idea. A man in a chicken suit followed the first George Bush around, until the President of the United State snapped at him...giving the fowl friend far too much credibility. In 2000, "Tax Man" hounded Hillary Clinton's opponent Rick Lazio for not releasing his tax returns. And, of course, in '04, the GOP delegates waved flip-flops and wore purple band-aids to mock service to our country.

So, weirder stuff has happened. Who, ahem, nose how this will turn out?

Bumped. In a worst case scenario in which Obama loses, this post identifies what will be the key messaging challenge for youth organizers on November 5th. --Mike

Personal drama, celebrity personalities, legal trouble, rumors, crowd comparing, covers of weekly mags…we even have celebrity speak outs, most recently from Pink and Matt Damon who are making their opinions loud and clear that they are definitely Team Obama/Biden.

It’s as if we are in the middle of the newest reality show.  But alas, it is the election of the next President, which nearly everyone would say is the most powerful position in the world and just about every young person I talk to says this election is critical for their jobs and families. 

Young Voters Up for Grabs?

Young voters are squarely with Team Obama/Biden, but some members of the media (and some tenacious young Republicans) don’t seem to think so.   Just last week the Wall Street Journal ran an article which essentially said that because of the Palin pick, young people are now up for grabs.

This assumes of course that young voters just fall out the sky to vote in large numbers for a candidate because they are young or give a good speech.  A candidate has to have a ground game in place for young people in order to secure their vote.  It is highly unlikely on the Republican side, this close to Election Day and especially since they are already facing a huge uphill climb since 2004, that they will be able to grab the youth vote.

In 2004, young people were the only age group to vote for the Democratic ticket, giving Kerry a 10% point advantage over Bush.  In 2006, young voters gave Democrats a 22% point advantage. In the most recent presidential poll done by Newsweek, young voters prefer Obama/Biden by a 27% point margin.  In fact, young voters are the only age group Team Obama/Biden is winning.

All of this good news on the youth vote does have a downside for Democrats.  If, like what happened in 2004, Republicans win, guess who gets blamed?  Yep, young voters.  Young people were told they didn’t turnout, that they didn’t perform yet again and that they are all hype—even though they increased their turnout more than any other age group and hit record turnout levels in 2004.  Clearly, the worry again if Obama does not win, is that young people will get blamed.

But...

Is liking someone enough to get someone’s vote, especially with young voters?  Will the economic times we are facing and that fact that poll after poll showing that the economy is the #1 issue young people care about win over the personality factor?  Will the election actually get back to talking about things like the economy?

In Nebraska, a few young Republicans I spoke with at the state’s Convention Watch Party are definitely Team McCain/Palin.  They like her because she is young, they feel like they can relate to her and the fact that she brings true conservative values and mom credentials to the ticket is a major plus.

Research however tell us time after time, in particular in studies done by researcher David Nickerson, the way you get young voters to the polls boils down to young people talking young people about the candidates/ issues and running a field program just like you would to any other group of voters.  The conventional wisdom that it’s all the cult of personality that gets young voters to the polls simply doesn’t ring true.

Drop the Lipstick, Bring the Focus Back

We have a banking system that is falling apart at the seams.  It started with Bear Sterns, then Fannie and Freddie and now we are beginning to hear the trickle of small and large banks that are being sold or being saved by the government (with our tax dollars).  AIG, one of the largest insurance companies, is asking the government right now for $40 billion dollars to save them from bankruptcy.  We are living what professors will teach in economic classes for the next 50 years or more and yet we are hearing more about lipstick.

If Team Obama/Biden and Team McCain/Palin are truly serious about targeting the youth vote, then here are a few suggestions to both teams:

1)     Go back to the hope place.  I am not the only one who wants to hear how we as a nation can solve our country’s problems.  Both liberal political commentator George Lakoff and conservative David Brooks are hungering for the hope place.  Is it any wonder why Reagan, who talked a lot about hope and the promise of our country and had a strong young voter outreach program on top of it all, won?  We all want hope back in politics, even if we do get distracted by lipstick and the cover of weekly mags occasionally.  Hope and the promise that our government can do better is why so many young people joined Team Obama to begin with.  Even if people are not saying it out loud, trust me, they want to be inspired, they want to be called to something bigger than themselves.  Don’t let us down and don’t listen to naysayers.  We want our hope back.

2)     Go bigger with young voter outreach programs.  While it’s true Obama has the best and biggest young voter outreach program in recent history, with not only a national youth director but state youth directors that have full field operations happening on and off college campuses.  McCain should do that as well, although it will be very difficult to build an operation in 50 days that Obama has been building over the last year.  Both campaigns absolutely need more buzz in youth circles.  Things have slowed down since the primary when it comes to the buzz, or what is often called “street marketing.”  Get local opinion leaders, mavericks, whatever you want to call them and get them to start wearing your shirts (think DJ at a club wearing a t-shirt with Obama’s face on it), do more parties like the Hope Gallery in Denver and look back at 2004 to what a lot of the youth groups from YDA to the League of Young Voters to the Bus Project and take a page out of their playbook because they were mad creative and it worked.  In fact, Obama's team is starting to do this...

3)     Keep the gloves off, but no sucker punches.  For anyone who wants the election to be warm and fuzzy, they should go to a secluded island tomorrow.  Our country is facing big problems and I don’t see either side being nice.  Young voters don’t mind “tough,” they just don’t want to be lied to.  Young people simply don’t buy a product on face value—information found on the internet and friends’ opinions matter and matter a lot.  Out of any of the age groups young people can see through the lies faster than any other voters since they have been marketed to since they were little kids—so it’s a skill fine tuned and trying to pull a fast one on young voters will most definitely back fire.

Today, while at a town hall meeting, McCain made one of the stupidest mistakes he could have made. He agreed with a women who brought up the draft.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Senator McCain I truly hope you get the opportunity to chase Bin Laden right to the gates of hell and push him in as you stated on your forum. I do have a question though. Disabled veterans, especially in this state, have horrible conditions [...] My son is an officer in the Air Force, and I am a vet and I was raised in a military family. I think it is a sad state of affairs when we have illegal aliens having a Medicaid card that can access specialist top physicians, the best of medical and our vets can't even get to a doctor. These are the people that we tied yellow ribbons for and Bush patted on the back. If we don't reenact the draft I don't think we will have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

JOHN MCCAIN: Ma'am let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said and thank you and I am grateful for your support of all of our veterans.

Now with Obama holding a steady lead among young voters this was probably the worst thing that McCain could say.

With president Bush's disapproval ratings, and most Americans wanting the United States to pull out of Iraq, this is not a good time for McCain to bring up the draft.

With young voters, one of the biggest issues in decided how to vote, is the Iraq war. If the youth catch on about what McCain said then this could be the issue that could send them to the polls. And that could be a McCain election disaster.

Today Democracy Corps released a new targeting analysis of the Presidential race. The research looks at where the Obama campaign is outperforming Democrats from 2004 and 2006 and where he is under-performing.

The image above shows that voters under 30 are supporting Obama at higher levels than supported John Kerry or Democrats in 2006. This is definitely good news for the Democratic Party. As we have talked about a lot before, young voters are moving towards the Democratic Party in large numbers.

I am a little surprised by the difference between voters under 30 and white voters under 30. Their survey shows white young voters statistically tied, where with all young voters Obama has a huge lead.

There's some interesting stuff in this report, so check it out and leave your thoughts in the comments.

It looks like the same old politics from John McCain. He promised that his campaign would do away with the negativity seen in politics. Looks like he hasn't kept his word. The first video you see on his site is an attack ad on Barack Obama. Obama has no such ads on his site. Furthermore, you can more easily see Barack's accomplishments and what he has been doing more recently than on McCain's site. McCain is an old guy. And it looks like he's sticking with the politics of old.

Obama has promised change, and look how many attacks he's made! On his site, absolutely none. That may have to change, as the attacks on him may be too much to sit passively and not fight back. However, Obama's intentions are clear: the country needs to shift its focus, and the government needs to become more trustworthy and more focused on the people, and not interest groups.

Obama has been accused of flip-flopping, but this attack has failed now that McCain has failed to keep his word on negative campaigns. People are worried that Obama's numbers in the poll are not as high as they should be. I'm positive his numbers will rise once people start to put more trust and faith in Obama as he continues to demonstrate that he has and will continue to keep his word.

I implore you to look at these sites. It'll help gain your understanding of how these two candidates are approaching the campaign, and hopefully help you to see the strong differences between the two.

by Travis Craw, Living Liberally

The McCain Campaign today uncovered the shocking and unexpected information That Barack Obama is in fact a black man. Senator John McCain discovered this after a comment Senator Obama made on Thursday that “Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Further investigation revealed that the democratic presidential hopeful does not only look different, but is a different race than any other president in American history.

In response to the Senators comment, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager has said that Mr. Obama has, "played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck." It appears that for many years the race card has been kept safely out of site at the bottom of the deck, and only through some cheap slight of hand has the Illinois senator been able to pull it out. Fears are mounting in the McCain camp that in addition to being a savvy statesman Mr. Obama might also be a skilled Magician.

Davis further said that Obama’s remarks are "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong." It is shocking that the Obama campaign is trying to inform the American People about the senator’s history of being a black man. We should be sticking to the issues and not side tracking with things as irrelevant to the American people as race.

Without these sort of card tricks and evasion, the American public might have never even noticed Barack Obama’s alleged Blackness. McCain on the other hand has been committed to an unbiased policy-based campaign, being himself entirely unaware that there are other races or that he him self has a race. Shame on you Mr. Obama and shame on all of those who might dare to call this a historic moment in American history.

Apologies for not posting this weekend. I celebrated my 30th B-Day (I'm aging out of this demographic, fast) and it turned into one of those weekends. Plus a guest post I had lined up fell through. Mea culpa.

Youthy-action on the information superhighway today:

• Ben Adler notes that, appearances on SNL aside, McCain is not gaining the support of young voters. - The Politico
• Jeff Johnson has an interesting - and pessimistic - critique of the black youth vote community from 2004 and how it has left black youth out in the cold during this election cycle. - Black Politics on the Web
• On a related topic, Campus Progress has an interview with Keli Goff about her new book: Party Crashing: How the Hip Hop Generation Declared Political Independence. Keli has similar views to Jeff about the allegiances of young black voters. - Campus Progress
• Kay Steiger at Campus Progress also reviewed feminist-blogger Amanda Marcotte's new book this week. - Campus Progress
• The GAO is going to start monitoring more closely the government's management of student loan programs. - The Politico
• Here's a very interesting blog post about replicating the success of local activism/institutions in other areas. Brush up on your Alinsky. - Open Left

Stuff you should know and see that I won't be blogging in depth:

• Looks like we have another YEO! John Tyler Hammons, a 17 year old freshman at the University of Oklahoma was elected the mayor of Muskegee, a town of 38,000 people. He ran on a good government platform and won in a run-off against the former mayor, capturing 70% of the vote. Way to go John. - The Politico
• Young evangelicals continue to abandon Bush and the GOP over Iraq and the economy. - Huffington Post
• The Godfathers of GOTV testing and research, Gerber and Green, have a new book out pimping Peer to Peer as the best form of organizing. Direct mail and robo-call consultants everywhere are not happy. - Campaigns and Elections
• Two articles say that Obama will need the "senior vote" if he is to beat McCain. I tend not to agree. There are more voters under 30 than over 65, and in some contests we are already performing on par with their turnout. It all depends on how many new young voters show up in November. - Democratic Strategist
• Obama is the king of voter-generated music tributes. - The Politico
• Republicans held a fashion show on the National Mall to show off their new convention swag. This was my favorite photo. And no, this is not a joke. - Minnesota Monitor

Who at the GOP thought it was a good idea to bring back MC Hammer pants? And I'm pretty sure that if that little girl were a lib'rul, we'd hear wingnuts screaming about flag desecration.

Been traveling a lot this week and my browser has a gagillion open tabs of stuff I meant to blog. Here they are. I'll try to have a recap of the Demos Better Deal Conference posted later.

• Paul Rosenberg has a detailed post documenting all the ways in which McCain has failed to support the troops. - Open Left
• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) agrees with Webb - McCain is full of it in his opposition to the GI Bill. And they have the stats to prove it. - Think Progress
• Micah Sifry has an interesting post on "Voter File 2.0" and Catalist's plans for the future. - Tech President
• The blogosphere is starting to wonder why YDA and CDA Super delegates have yet to endorse Senator Obama. - Americablog
• Rock the Vote has calculated that Young Voter turnout this year increased by 2.2 million over turnout in the 2000 and 2004 primaries. - Rock the Vote
• More reportage on Obama's success in raising small dollar donations, particularly from young people. - The Politico
• Congress is fast-tracking a student loan bill, though whether that is a good or bad thing for students in the long-term is still unclear to me. - The Politico
• The Millennial Makeover authors argue that Clinton and Obama supporters arguing over the strength of their coalitions just don't get it; demography is destiny for the Democratic Party. - Huffington Post
• Where is the next generation of philanthropists? - Tactical Philanthropy
• More kvetching about the lack of protest music. Will they never stop whining about this? - Huffington Post
• Clay Shirky discusses our "cognitive surplus" and what it means for human information production and organizing. - Open Left
• Andrew Kohut explores the widening generation gap in how voters cast their ballots. - New York Times