Students for Barack Obama

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.
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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.
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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.