quick hits

Hope you are all having a better holiday than me. I've been sick as a dog and mostly useless since Friday morning.

• CQ Politics profiles Henry Waxman, congressional watchdog and the new chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Waxman is likely to be a big ally in passing bold energy policy this year.
• Despite problems with the exit polls, word is trickling in that young voters in Colorado came out big and like their peers in most states, went for Obama.
• Ari Melber at The Nation has a few thoughts about Obama for America 2.0.
• Looking back on Obama for America 1.0, you should read this lengthy interview with campaign manager David Plouffe if you have not already done so.
• At CNN.com, Marian Salzman discusses intra-generational politics within the Baby Boomers, and how Obama represents a changing of the generational guard.
• Meanwhile, the Washington Post delves into generational politics in this piece about the "Madoff Generation."

I'm playing catchup today after 4 days in DC. Here's some stuff I missed while I was away. In reverse chronological order:

• The Project on Student Debt is encouraging the incoming administration to include student aid as part of the economic stimulus package. Here's a letter they sent (pdf) to Speaker Pelosi on the subject.
• The Project on Student Debt is also sending letters to Hank Paulson, demanding that he bail out students along with multi-billion dollar corporations. Sign the letter here.
• At the New American Foundation's Higher Ed Watch Blog, Luke Swarthout outlines a fair textbook policy that could alleviate economic pressures on students and break the oligopoly of the big three text book publishers. For more on this, visit Make Textbooks Affordable.
• The Democratic Strategist has a new paper outlining how Democrats can keep the support of young white working class voters.
• In The Nation, Kristina Rizga continues to ask "you voted, now what?" This time, she profiles Juan Reynosa of New Mexico Youth Organized, a member group of the Bus Federation.
• My Change.org Idea - National Election Day Registration - is tied for third place in the Civic Engagement category. The top three vote-getters in each category by December 31st will move on to round two. Go vote for my idea!
• At Personal Democracy Forum, Micah Sifry revels more about what a potential Obama for America 2.0 will look like.
• YP4 announced it's 2009 Fellows. Congrats to FM friend Ian Magruder for snagging a spot.
• In the Washington Times, Ben Domenech argues that Republicans must fight for young voters. Not because they will win, but because any victory for the GOP relies on at least cutting into Obama's 2 - 1 victory margin among Millennials.
• A study by Anderson Analytics shows that blogging is increasing in popularity among Millennials.

Happy Holidays. Here's what's caught my eye this week:

• The Washington Independent notes that Obama's energy policy is being driven by (young) green votes.
• AlterNet asks, Will the youth movement save the labor movement?
• Daily Kos has data that Join the Impact's anti-Prop 8 protests have changed enough minds in California that the ballot measure would not pass a second time. And they have data to prove it. That's an effective use of the protest model.
• The National Journal credits young voters with Obama's win, noting that his advantage among Millennials is bad news for the longterm health of the GOP. Generation We, YDA and others get good play in this excellent article.
• Oregon local news notes that young people were elected to the state legislature in droves this year, doubling their numbers within the Democratic caucus. Jefferson Smith, one of the founders of the Bus Project, is one of those new Young Elected Officials and he is quoted in the article.
• Netcentric Advocacy gives us the Obama campaign by the numbers. Interesting stats here.
• This is a must read. In the Huffington Post, Jake Brewer of the Energy Action Coalition, son of a GM worker, gives a heartbreaking and insightful account of the state of the auto industry. Word on the street is that this piece is getting read by GM execs.
• MySpace and Change.org are partnering with a number of other youthy and techie c3s to ask for your ideas on what President Obama should do once he takes office. They've got a cool Digg-style site set up to rate ideas, which must be no more than 250 words in length.
• The Obama Transition Team wants your ideas on healthcare.
• The Daily Kos empire expands with the launch of Congress Matters, a new blog that will track what's going on in Congress and offer activists and regular citizens information on how they can most impact the policy process.
• Danah Boyd and some other smarties have finished a three year ethnographic study of digital youth. This should be interesting.
• Engaged Youth has a post up about the "Activism Style of Millennials."
• At Tech President, Micah Sifry interviews Marshall Ganz about Obama's field operation and the upside and dangers of Obama as the first President backed by a full-fledged movement.

So, I'm finally settled back in. Here's the rest of those Quick Hits I didn't get to while at the Austin airport, as well as a few more that have accumulated since.

• The Austin Statesman picked up our little youth caucus, but seemed to miss the point. The caucus was an informal meeting, not a strategy session to construct a master youth plan. And the focus of the discussion - to what extent our youth movement needed to be about GOTV and infrastructure for organizing our peers, or building an ideological consensus - was barely touched on in his piece.
• In this piece by The Washington Post, 29 year old Republican tech strategist David All confirms the complete disconnect between the GOP and Millennials. My favorite line:
  

  David All points to a page on McCain's Web site as more old-fogy branding:

• PEW reports that young voters in this election are at least - if not more - knowledgeable about the candidates' position on Iraq.
• Anderson Cooper's ac360 blog profiles HeadCount and their latest work at the Camp Bisco festival.
• The Virginia Pilot reports that young Viginians (under 25) are registering at twice the rate of their elders. Registration has increased 10% in the last year.
• Rumors abound that Barack Obama is going to show up as a surprise guest at this year's Lollapalooza, which takes place in his hometown of Chicago.
• Young People For just announced the new class of their Front Line Leaders Academy.
• Nine Latino organizations are teaming up to spend $5 million on a nonpartisan voter registration effort targeting 2 million Latinos.
• Finally, Rock the Vote is teaming up with Comcast in its effort to register 2 million new voters this election cycle. I'm not a fan of this partnership. Last year, Comcast was caught blocking internet traffic from peer to peer networks. They are on the wrong side of the Net Neutrality debate.

I'm in the Jet Blue terminal at JFK waiting for my flight down to Austin for Netroots Nation. I hate flying, but I'm somewhat looking forward to the flight down - 4 hours with no internet will give me a lot of time to work on a few blog posts that have been rattling round in my head for the past week.

Living Liberally will post their usual Tues-Thurs blog later today, but the rest of the week will likely consist mostly of live blogs from Netroots Nation. If you're going to be down there, here's where you will find me. I'll be the guy with the fish logo on his credential.

Two more things before I head offline. First, thanks to everyone who has contributed to our little fundraiser for the Young Voter PAC. We're not at 50 donors yet, but we're inching our way up there. Please give a little bit if you can. Second, here's some reading to tide you over until I land and the live-blogging begins:

• Tremayne at Open Left reports on the massive increase in voter registration on the Democratic side. A lot of that is from Millennials.
• Anya Kamenetz has a new column about the new interest rate on student loans and strategies for getting rid of your student debt.
• She's also got a blog post up about how the economic downturn is affecting youth employment.
• If you care, Jib Jab has a new video up lampooning McCain and Obama and riffing off Bob Dylan. Personally, I never thought they were all that funny . . .
• Earlier this week, Bergerc84 posted a thoughtful piece about McCain's (lack of) youth outreach. Well the gossip rags are now reporting that the McCain Blogette had lunch with Heidi Montag from The Hills. I guess that's McCain's idea of ramping up the youth outreach???
• Finally, the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights wants to know what Civil Rights 2.0 looks like and what Civil Rights means to Millennials. They're holding a YouTube competition to find out. They have a video, but the Jet Blue wifi doesn't seem to want to load YouTube so I'll have to embed it later.

Sorry for the site hiccup earlier today. We were trying to get rid of a bug with the user profiles and the site didn't want to play nice.

Here's the last of my catchup - a rundown on some stories you may have missed while you were out BBQ and watching giant explosions in the sky.

• The Hip Hop Caucus reports that anti-affirmative action measures will likely be on the ballot in Arizona and Nebraska this fall. Will that be a boon or an albatross around the neck of candidates like Scott Kleeb? I'm not sure. This might rally the Republican base, but young voters are a tolerant group; this could backfire on the GOP.
• Beginning today, the interest rates on student loans have decreased. College Democrats have the lowdown on what that will mean for students.
• The New York Times profiles Chris Hughes and the Obama social networking operation.
• The Rothenberg Report profiled a long-shot but interesting race in which 29 year old Josh Segall is taking on a Republican incumbent in Alabama. I'm going to see about getting Josh to live-blog. If anyone can hook that up, please contact me.
• Sam Stein at The Huffington Post notes that redistricting will be a major issue in 2010 when 32 gubernatorial elections will determine whether Democrats or Republicans benefit most from the next round of gerrymandering.
• Katrina Vanden Huevel has a must-read piece on reforming our voting system - top to bottom.
• Obama is running into some trouble with his supporters over his flip-flop on FISA and everyone from bloggers to Bob Herbert have weighed in. Will Obama listen to the grassroots uprising within his own support base? This is a big test for just how open and bottom-up the Obama campaign really is.

Today is the big day. Hopefully the last day of the primary season. I'll have some overall thoughts up on the nomination process later today.

• Current TV tackles the Millennial generation and the coming political realignment:

• Why have anti-war protests proven so unsuccessful? David Sirota has some answers in The Protest Industry vs. The Players
• Kevin Bondelli follows up on his post here yesterday and outlines why Vote Pledges are important even in heavily Democratic districts.
• Banks are cutting down on loans and leaving community colleges and two-year college students out in the cold.
• A veteran runs the numbers and debunks McCain's fears about the Webb GI Bill.
• Wired runs a mini-profile of Josh Levy, formerly of Tech President but now an editor at Change.org. The story hits on the power of social networking to mobilize change, and Youth to Power merits a mention.
• The New York Times gets hip to the new face of evangelical community, and how young people are redefining the role of politics in their faith.
• Finally, episode one of This Brave Nation is live. In it, Carl Pope and Van Jones provide insight into the development of the progressive movement over the last half century and discuss how and why they became progressive activists. In particular, I found fascinating their discussion (2/3 through the video) about the role of culture in social change and why artists today seem less involved than in the 60s: