Students for Barack Obama

One thing about the Inauguration to be aware of is the many balls that are happening in Washington. Inauguration is a lot like the acceptance speech at the Oscars only they don't play you off the stage. Inaugural Balls are like the post Oscar Parties, only people wear a hell of a lot more black clothing and people are drunkenly talking about numbers, charts, graphs, and policies, rather than movies, publicists, and who's dressed the worst.

Now you have to know your balls quite well. There are a lot of balls in DC..... more than you'd think. And everyone dresses up special for their balls. Even some caucuses have balls! Thus far there are 9 official and 31 unofficial balls. Everything from Native American balls, to the official Commander and Chief Ball hosted by military personal ... you could I suppose call that the Brass Ball.. There are Hawaiian balls, in the past a Texas/Wyoming Ball presumably because that was where the Pres and VP were from. I've been told that Texas has very large balls or at least they like to think they do.

CNN did a recent special about the Balls and the extravagances that you see at these balls. Everyone wants to have a big expensive flashy ball - I mean who doesn't want to see some flashy balls right? Especially in Washington which often times is filled with so much darkness and seriousness. But, at a time when the economy is in peral and our Commander in Chief will face some pretty steep challenges on Day 1, do we want him out the night before taking in so many balls? I mean... you really have to pace yourself...

In the past balls have been paid for by flashy lobbyists and companies hoping to wine and dine key members in the Washington community. But if you've given you r two cents on Change.gov then you have also been asked to be a contributor to the transition and inauguration to prove that small donors can fund this thing just like we funded the campaign. That said... of the millions upon millions of donors to the Obama campaign only a select 4 million are expected to come to DC and lets face it... there just aren't enough balls for all of us to attend.

Similarly, most balls require tickets which are often times pricey, so the kinds of people who are able to attend either have to have the hook up or they have to have money. This means, largely that young people are once again... shut out of the influence, the celebration, and the flashy crab cakes.

But the Babyboomer Professionals get the Celebration of Change Ball... where they will all get to groove to some easy listening and sip on champagne while undoubtably talking about how big and awesome their ball is. No word on whether it will be a disco ball.

The cheapest balls I can find are certainly the unofficial balls like the Garden State Ball(New Jersey is the Garden State) which is only $125 with black tie optional... its unclear whether you get wacked at the end of the night or if the wine is from a box...

The Change the Nation Celebration Ball plays the song Celebration when you look up the invite. That is a cheap ball at $125 and hosted by a consulting firm in Maryland... So if you want to schlep way up north to see some hawt ball action, its only $125 and $125 for the cab to get there.

The Illinois State Society is hosting a $300 Gala, no word yet on if you must pronounce it gay-la or gall-la if you attend.

The Creative Coalition which works to lobby for arts policies and such is hosting their super pricey Hollywood Liberals Gala where the LA and New York finance committee will be in full ball on ball mode. Last time I saw Susan Sarandon she was quite drunk, so I'm sure the Creative Coalition won't mind if I forgo the $10,000 and sit this one out ...

While I can make jokes about the size of people's balls, or their caucus balls, or the attire for their balls, or whether they like to call their balls gay-las or whatever... the long and the short for balls is that young people, who had a huge part in the success of President Obama's election are being once again.... ignored.

No ball for you... and even if there was a youthy ball, a small youthy ball, with popcorn and boxed wine, Snoop calling Obama the Prizzle... whatever ... we would then have to figure out how the hell to help young people pay the thousands of dollars for hotel rooms or to rent apartments for the weekend.

CNN has one thing right - we want to party with Obama, we want to celebrate the success, but having big balls is not quite as great as passing policies that impact our lives, particularly when you're a demographic or interest group that will have no access and/or no credibility when it comes to admission, official Presidential Balls or not. Our night can just be about free ballin'.

Great, great story on young voters and Students for Barack Obama in the Wall Street Journal. This may be the first piece I've seen that really picks up on what peer to peer organizing, applied at the local level, is all about:

Barack Obama's chances of winning the presidency could rest on the votes of 20-to-30-year-olds -- and, to an unprecedented degree, he is letting his young supporters decide how to win those votes.
...
At the University of Detroit Mercy, Lauren Wolfe, a 25-year-old superdelegate, set out cautiously with her clipboard to hit the bars to register Democrats to vote. Wayne County, which houses the university, has more than 1,400 businesses licensed to sell alcohol.

"We were shocked by the amount of people that really responded," says Ms. Wolfe. "We had one guy who had just moved from New York and knew that his vote in New York didn't mean as much as it did in Michigan. He was like, 'I'm so glad that you guys are here because I probably never would have actually switched my registration.'"

In Oregon, music and arts-based approaches have been more effective. At one Oregon university, students set up a party tent with an artist who painted murals of Sen. Obama. Whoever registered to vote at the tent was invited to sign the mural. The setup drew more students and eventually local musicians who would perform and attract more young voters, says Ms. Arsenault.

"In this campaign they gave students the ability to actually recognize what was needed," says Molly Kawahata, an 18-year-old convention delegate from California and an incoming freshman at University of California, Berkeley.
...
In part, the local-autonomy approach emerged from lessons learned during the primary season. Student organizers at Boston College, for instance, gathered students to canvass community colleges in nearby Berlin and Manchester, N.H., says Joshua Darr, the 21-year-old Massachusetts director of Students for Barack Obama.

"The Obama campaign has really trusted students to organize their own campuses and that's very encouraging," says Mr. Darr.

Hell yeah - providing the resources to let young people organize how they know best in their communities. As long as you add in tracking and accountability, this is the way that youth organizing should work. All Democratic campaigns, and all Democratic state and local parties, should have similar organizing strategies for youth. As should outside organizations that work in support of the party and its candidates. This shouldn't just be the work of one campaign.

On a related note, I was able to sit down with Leigh Arsenault at the Democratic Convention and was super happy with what she had to say about how they will be organizing on campuses (above), the number of organizers they are hiring, and how they'll be working off campus to reach non-college youth, and making targeted ad buys aimed at youth. I'm not a huge fan of media buys if it comes at the expense of field, but that doesn't seem like it is at all happening, and I'm very curious to see if someone can produce some real research as to what targeted ads on Comedy Central, MTV and/or Cartoon Network might produce.

Good stuff all around. More on the Obama youth plan once I have another chance to touch base with the campaign.

Students for Barack Obama is stepping up their lobbying campaign for super delegates representing young voters to support Sen. Obama's candidacy:

STUDENTS FOR BARACK OBAMA CALL ON SUPERDELEGATES WHO REPRESENT THE YOUTH VOTE TO COMMIT TO SUPPORTING BARACK OBAMA

Obama has overwhelmingly won the youth vote in the primary contests

WASHINGTON, DC -- After Barack Obama's big victory in North Carolina and close finish in Indiana left no doubt that he is on the path to securing the Democratic nomination, Students for Barack Obama today called on the superdelegates who represent young voters to certify the youth vote by publically committing to support Obama at the convention.

"Barack Obama has inspired students and young voters across the country to mobilize in historic numbers behind his candidacy," said Meredith Segal, National Director of Students for Barack Obama. "Barack has won the most contests, the most pledged delegates, and the most votes – his path to the nomination is clear, and his victory is imminent. He is the candidate who has empowered our generation and the one who embodies our ideals. It is time for the leaders of the College Democrats of America and the Young Democrats of America who are superdelegates to certify the will of young voters across the country by uniting behind Barack Obama. David Hardt, Crystal Strait, Awais Khalil, and Lauren Wolfe should publically commit this week to voting for Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver."

In contests where demographic data are available, Obama has won an average of 62% of the youth vote compared to Clinton's 34%. He won the youth vote in every contest except for Arkansas and Massachusetts, where he lost by 1%. In this week's contests, Obama won the youth vote in North Carolina by 49% and in Indiana by 22%.

Not listed is Francisco Domenech, the third representative for the Young Democrats of America. According to DemConWatch, Domenech has already declared support or Hillary.

It's an interesting situation, and I've already outlined my take on how super delegates representing young voters should cast their super ballots. As we reported previously, Lauren and Awais, the two representatives from the College Democrats, have put out a YouTube video asking young people for advice on who to support. SFBO makes a compelling case why Obama should be their candidate.

Last week, I linked to a piece that rather succinctly explained why I don't do more than skim the candidate blogs anymore - they are typically nothing more than generic boosterism of the candidate's latest activity or press releases for upcoming events.

There is an exception to that, however. I actually read the Students for Barack Obama blog every day. To be sure, there is a fair amount of boosterism on the SFBO blog too, but there are occasionally some decent historical and think pieces, and SFBO Rewind, a regular feature which reviews the recent events and achievements of students for Barack chapters across the country is genuinely useful. It helps build the sense that SFBO chapters and blog readers are part of a larger, national movement, and is a decent vehicle for disseminating some best practices and conveys to SFBO members ideas as to what it is possible to accomplish with their own chapters.

As I was reading the blog today, I also noticed a feature that had previously escaped my attention. Atop each blog is a link notifying the reader as to how many groups within the MyBarackObama social network are talking about that particular post, and linking the reader to those groups. There's been some criticism (and I myself have complained) that the Obama campaign's grassroots were not as transparent as the Dean grassroots. Little things like this make it more transparent. That's not to say that there aren't differences between Dean and Obama's online operations and indeed the structure of their whole campaign, but these little touches are helping me see something more coherent and national and less siloed that my previous impressions.