presidential youthroots movements

Joshua Gorman is a student and youth activist living in Washington DC, a member of Students for Barack Obama, part of the leadership team for Barack the Youth Vote, and a passionate supporter of the Obama youthroots movement as a whole.

Yes, Barack Obama went through his own troubling youth identity-crisis. He has openly admitted he inhaled; he’s been wasted and hung-over more than once in his youth; and he often found himself feeling lost and uncertain about his identity and his ultimate place within the world. But that’s not the youth identity-crisis we’re talking about here. (For the engaging story about this first one, check out Obama’s autobiography Dreams from My Father .)

Barack Obama has another youth identity-crisis taking place today: with his unprecedented youthroots movement. The Obama youth movement is by far largest and most energetic of all the 2008 presidential campaigns. Currently the national student network Students for Barack Obama (SFBO) is the official student wing of the Obama campaign, but as Barack Obama continues to rally young Americans from all sectors of the broad youth demographic with his fresh spirit and generational call-to-action, the question is arising as to how best to integrate this rapidly growing movement into the most effective and efficient structure that can accommodate the broadest number of young Americans—students and non-students, youth activists and young professionals, and the countless other youth and young adults who are ready to change our nation and transform the world.