Youth Organizing

INTRODUCTION TO PEER-TO-PEER

Peer-to-peer campaigning is built on three principles:

1. The more personal a contact, the more effective it is in turning out voters.
2. People are most strongly influenced by people they know and people that are similar to them.
3. The most effective way to reach potential voters is to go to the places where they live or hang out.

Most field programs in the past were based on the assumption that young Americans were not receptive to political appeals, however research done over the last decade reveals that young voters are just as affected by political contact as other age demographics.¹ While this research tore down one assumption, it confirmed another: personal contacts are much more effective than impersonal methods. The findings of Green and Gerber showed an 8-10% mobilizing effect from door-to-door (in person) contact and a 3-5% effect from calls made by volunteers. Other less personal contact methods such as calls made from professional phone banks, leafleting, and direct mail all yielded a mobilizing effect of 2% or less at a dramatically higher cost-to-vote ratio. ²

A person is influenced the most by their family, friends, and neighbors. These social bonds increase the pressure to say yes to a request and carry the strength of trust. The eminent social psychologist Dr. Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University uses the following example in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion:

Take, for instance, the growing number of charity organizations that recruit volunteers to canvass for donations close to their own homes. They understand perfectly how much more difficult it is for us to turn down a charity request when it comes from a friend or a neighbor.³

This principle applies not only to charity requests but to political requests as well, from registering someone to vote to turning them out on Election Day.

People are also more likely to comply with a request made by someone that is similar to them. For example, you are more likely to do something that is asked of you if the requester is dressed like you, and you probably will not realize that it had any effect on your decision. Cialdini highlights a study from the 1970s where “marchers in an antiwar demonstration were found to be not only more likely to sign the petition of a similarly dressed requester, but also to do so without bothering to read it first.” ⁴

When it comes to electoral participation, young voters “need the authentic encouragement of a peer to become a participant.” ⁵

The greatest challenge in reaching young voters for traditional field programs is finding them. Millennials move more frequently and are more likely to rely solely on a mobile phone than older generations.⁶ The key to reaching this important demographic is to go to the places where young people live and hang out. University campuses, concerts, cultural and community events, parks, sporting events, progressive churches, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and shopping centers are all places that campaigns can engage peer-to-peer with young voters. As Michael Connery described in Youth to Power, “concert halls and bars became the progressive equivalent of how evangelical churches are used by the conservative movement.”⁷ The key is to contact and engage young voters using the context of their own lives.

PEER-TO-PEER TACTICS

The ideal location for peer-to-peer outreach will have a large concentration of young people and an environment that is conducive to socializing and communicating. A great way to find out where the best opportunities are is to ask your young supporters: nobody knows where young people hang out better than a young person. Here are some examples:

• High traffic areas of college and university campuses – Outside the entrances of the library, student union, residence halls, and large classroom buildings. It is important to not focus solely on a single location but to periodically switch locations so you reach a variety of different people.⁸ A successful tactic that many Young and College Democrats chapters have used is to help students move in to their residence halls during the first week of school and use that opportunity to talk to the students.
• Outside of sporting events – Talk to young people as they enter and exit a stadium for a sporting event. Using the principle of similarity mentioned earlier, have your organizers wear clothing representing the home team.
• Community and cultural events – For example, in Phoenix there is a First Fridays art festival on the first Friday of every month. The Young Democrats of Arizona reserve table space at the festival and have been extremely successful collecting voter registrations, petition signatures, and email list sign-ups.
• County fairs and 4-H events – In rural areas county fairs provide a great opportunity for reaching rural youth, which is one of the hardest demographics to reach. 4-H clubs are also very popular with rural youth.

Tabling is a very popular tactic among campus organizers due to it being particularly effective on college and university campuses. However, tabling can be effective anywhere that allows you to set up space in a high-traffic area as long as it is not so crowded you are completely drowned out.

The most common mistake made while tabling is for organizers to just remain seated at the table waiting for people to come to them. The main purpose of the table is for visibility and to hold campaign materials. While an organizer should always remain at the table, other organizers should only use the table as a home base and spend their time out in the crowds engaging young people.

The campaign should also prioritize the actions that they want people to take, whether it is registering to vote, signing a petition, signing up for an email list, or completing a vote pledge. Once a person has taken your priority action, this may be your foot-in-the-door for secondary and tertiary actions. Be careful not to be too aggressive with people, be polite even when someone blows you off, and always thank someone for taking an action. You want to ensure that people leave with a positive impression of the campaign.

In addition to your general campaign materials, the table should also have plenty of voter registration forms as well as any other technical forms depending on your jurisdiction (for example, in Arizona there are forms to request a ballot by mail or to sign up for the permanent early voter list). Your table should be fully equipped as a resource for any election needs, including the ability to give polling place information closer to the election.

Vote pledges are based on the power of commitment and consistency. According to Dr. Cialdini, “once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.”⁹ A vote pledge asks a voter to commit to voting in the next election.

The vote pledge was the primary tool in the Young Democrats of America organizing arsenal during the 2008 election. The YDA vote pledge was not only a pledge to vote, but a pledge to vote for Democrats throughout the ballot. The young people that signed a vote pledge committed to take that action, and they were much more likely to actually do so in order to be consistent: "Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand." ¹⁰

For this commitment to truly take hold of the signer, the must take ownership of their pledge. This means that campaigns and organizations should not offer external incentives for people to sign:

Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibility for a behavior when we think we have chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures. A large reward is one such external pressure. It may get us to perform a certain action, but it won’t get us to accept inner responsibility for the act. Consequently, we won’t feel committed to it. ¹¹

Using incentives such as raffle tickets or free chum diminishes the sense of inner responsibility, and while it may boost your numbers in the beginning, your results on Election Day will suffer.

An effective vote pledge form must allow you to collect contact information from the signers, specifically their name, address, email, and phone number. Hard copies of vote pledge forms should also include a signature line, since the act of signing a document increases psychological commitment.¹²

Collecting the vote pledge is only the first step. With the information you have collected you can follow up with the people that signed to remind them of their pledge and give them voting information such as the location of their polling place. Following the election you can check the voter file to evaluate how successful you were in getting those people to the polls. Given the difficulty of finding good contact information for young voters due to increased mobility and exclusive use of cell phones, this data is extremely valuable.

David Plouffe’s memoir of the 2008 Obama for America campaign, The Audacity to Win, frequently returns to the importance of expanding the electorate to winning the election.¹³ To expand the electorate a campaign must register and turn out new and unlikely voters.

A campaign or organization’s emphasis on voter registration should depend on the mission and the distance to an election. There are organizations that focus almost entirely on registration, and for them it is a priority up until the registration deadline. A candidate or partisan youth organization will benefit from registration efforts early in a campaign but will be better served focusing on turning out voters as the election draws near. However, organizers should always have registration forms on hand regardless of the timing.

One tactic that has been successful with some youth organizations are Pledge to Reg programs geared towards Millennials that are about to turn 18. Similar to the vote pledge tactic, organizers get 17-year-olds to complete and sign a Pledge to Reg form with their contact information so the organizers can follow up with them once they are eligible to register to vote.

Campaigns should always make photocopies of collected registration forms so the new registrants can be later contacted with election reminders and polling information. Organizers should also be trained to be able to quickly look over a registration form to ensure that everything is complete.

In states and districts with a Republican registration advantage, registering new young voters and following up with them to get them to the polls can be the difference between a celebration on election night and a heartbreaking close call.

The most important aspect of a youth GOTV effort is to convey information to contacts about when and where to vote.¹⁴ In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes a study at Yale University that tested methods used to encourage students to visit the student health center and receive a tetanus vaccination. While information packets with fear-inducing information about the disease had virtually no effect, researchers were able to increase the vaccination rate by 28% solely by “including a map of the campus, with the university health building circled and the times that shots were available clearly listed.” The interesting aspect of the study was that the students that responded to the map already knew where the building was. According to Gladwell:

The students needed to know how to fit the tetanus stuff into their lives; the addition of the map and the times when the shots were available shifted the booklet from an abstract lesson in medical risk – a lesson no different from the countless other academic lessons they had received over their academic career – to a practical and personal piece of medical advice. And once the advice became practical and personal, it became memorable.¹⁶

This same principle applies to getting young voters to the polls on Election Day. Your campaign needs to give young voters the information that puts voting in the context of their lives. A GOTV effort on a college campus that has an on-campus polling location could include a handout of a campus map with the polling location circled with the times that the location is open. You can email young voters that were registered or contacted earlier in the campaign a Google Map with the directions from their registration address to their polling site. At a minimum your campaign should be telling voters when and where to vote.

Successful cultural outreach does not happen overnight. In the past the ‘cultural outreach’ efforts of campaigns and organizations were just “campaign rallies and civic drives in cultural drag, exploiting the culture to attain a specific goal.”¹⁷ Using Malcolm Gladwell’s definitions from The Tipping Point, Michael Connery argues that “a real cultural outreach strategy finds the mavens, connectors, and salespeople within each subculture and uses them to change the entire culture itself from the bottom up.”¹⁸

Biko Baker of the League Young Voters Education Fund highlights some of the errors organizations make in organizing non-college youth. First, campaigns have to earn the trust of young people in low-income communities: “you can't just pop up in a neighborhood and get respect. You have to earn it.”¹⁹ Second, the focus must be more on organizing and less on just promoting your campaign or organization: “Low income communities only respond when they see a real commitment to organizing and local leadership development.”²⁰ Cultural outreach is a powerful tool in organizing non-college youth, but to be successful you need to earn the respect of a community’s influencers and develop them into organizers.

Cultural outreach requires active and continuous engagement in order to be effective. Because of this, many campaigns and organizations ignore cultural outreach and instead focus solely on college students – the low-hanging fruit of youth organizing. By neglecting non-college and low-income youth, campaigns waste important opportunities to expand the electorate with new progressive voters and empower these communities.

Notes

¹ See Friedrichs, Ryan. Mobilizing 18-35 Year Old Voters: An Analysis of the Michigan Democratic Party’s 2002 Youth Coordinated Campaign, 2003.; Green, Donald P. and Gerber, Alan S. Getting Out the Youth Vote: Results from Randomized Field Experiments, 2001.; and Nickerson, David W. Hunting the Elusive Young Voter, Journal of Political Marketing, Vol. 5 (3) 2006.
² Analysis of Green and Gerber’s findings in Friedrichs 2003.
³ Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Quill, 1993. (169)
⁴ Cialdini (173)
⁵ Nickerson (26)
⁶ Pew Millennials Report (32)
⁷ Connery, Michael. Youth to Power: How Today's Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow's Progressive Majority. Brooklyn: Ig Publishing, 2008. (158)
⁸ Student PIRGs Activist Toolkit (6)
⁹ Cialdini (57)
¹⁰ Cialdini (67)
¹¹ Cialdini (93)
¹² Werner, Carol M., Jane Turner, Kristen Shipman, F. Shawn Twitchell, Becky R. Dickson, Gary V. Bruschke and Wolfgang B. von Bismarck. Commitment, behavior, and attitude change: An analysis of voluntary recycling. Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 15, Issue 3, September 1995. Pages 197-208.
¹³ Plouffe, David. The Audacity to Win. New York: Viking, 2009.
¹⁴ Gerber and Green 2001 (4)
¹⁵ Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. New York: Back Bay Books, 2002. (97)
¹⁶ Gladwell (98)
¹⁷ Connery (156)
¹⁸ Connery (157)
¹⁹ Baker, Biko. Doing REAL work with Non-College Youth. FutureMajority.com. March 4, 2010.
²⁰ Baker, 2010.

Last week (Aug 5 - 9) I was in Chicago, IL for the 2009 Young Democrats of America National Convention. Aside from being in an awesome city and being around tons of young people with similar beliefs, the convention proved to be an incredible learning and networking experience. YDA is more than a social club it is a respectable organization dedicated to motivating young people and making them a more powerful political force Nation wide. YDA achieves this through various training sessions offered throughout the week and bringing in great speakers like Dr. Howard Dean.

During the week thousands of Democrats (young and old) gathered in Chicago to attend the great training sessions and see the speakers. The training sessions offered at the YDA convention ranged from sessions on "Community Organizers Running for Office" to "Finance 101 and Finance 202". As a result of the top notch training many young democrats returned to their states ready to work and better trained to make a difference (full list of training sessions at the end of post).

This year the Kansas delegation consisted of seventeen great Young Democrats from various areas of the state. All of us attended multiple training sessions and we all left Chicago excited and ready to get started. The training we received in Chicago was extremely valuable and it was only because of the great donors we had statewide that we were able to go. The donors enabled all of us to return home armed with the know how needed and the hopes of helping to turn Kansas a few shades bluer.

Kansas Delegation list: Tyler Longpine, Colin Curtis (me), Skye Coleman, Chris Terry, Jamie Epstein, Chelsea Mertz, John Moreau, Merriam Langdon, Erin Doughty, Ben Cohen, Andrew Rickel, Amar Gupta, Molly McGuire, Andrew Mertz, Shane Gagnebin, Jimelle Austin, Anthony Martinez.

Part of the Kansas delegation is pictured below

YDA presents youth from all over the Nation with the opportunity to make connections, receive the training needed to organize their community, the know how to be an extremely valuable member of their community, become a more effective activist, or prepare them for a career in political campaigns and public service.

Among all the exciting training sessions and all the great speakers there was also an election that took place. Their were two slates running for the leadership positions in YDA. Sarah Burris brought you the first announcement of election results in her post. The slate elected to lead YDA for the next two years was referred to as YDA Works (which includes fellow Everyday Citizen writer William Isaac Robinson). YDA Works has identified problems with in the organization and has committed to improving YDA over the next two years in a multitude of ways.

What we have to work on:

-The number of local YDA chapters created online has skyrocketed in the past few years, but our ability to engage those new chapters has not kept up with our growth.

-YDA Partnership Programs, until recently, have only worked with State Organizations – leaving the creativity and passion of local chapters out of our national organization and the best practices and campaign resources of the national organization away from local chapters.

-Many local chapters do not feel connected to the national organization, each other, or the broader youth movement, limiting our collective effectiveness.

-YDA’s technological infrastructure is inefficient and can not sustain the growth of YDA. Our local chapters feel the pain of this inadequacy when trying to perform general administrative duties and while communicating with their members.

How we will make YDA work better:

-Make sure YDA has an operational online membership management system for all local chapters.
Invest in a peer-to-peer partnership program for the 2009 elections in Virginia that provides opportunities for all chapters around the country to develop young voter contact skills to be utilized in their states for the 2010 elections.

-Continue to expand the partnership programs to local chapters and caucuses in order to get YDA resources on the ground.

-Rely on the creativity and ingenuity of our local chapters and their leadership when it comes to creating programming.

Pictured: YDA Works team (left to right) Rod Snyder, Executive Vice President, Renee Hartley, First VP, Isaac Robinson, Second VP, Colmon Elridge, Third VP, Emily Robinson, Secretary, Mark Newman, Treasurer and at the podium is Crystal Strait, President.

Fellow Future Majority writer, Kevin Bondelli, also deserves a great amount of credit in this election. Kevin was the campaign manager for YDA Works and the newly appointed YDA Chief of Staff.

I believe my involvement in YDA has and will continue to help me grow politically and help me to become a more active member of society and for the causes I believe in. I am currently in the aspirations to be elected as the President of the Kansas Young Democrats, for you Kansans I hope I can count on your support in my race. I encourage all Young Democrats to reach out to their local YDA chapter and get involved because only through our involvement will we be able to ensure our voices are heard.

As promised from above- Complete Training list with descriptions:

Community Organizer Large Training Tracks:

-Community Organizers Running for Office
So you think you want to run for office? Come learn exactly what it takes; from the initial gut check, to developing a campaign plan, to actually getting out the vote for yourself. Hear from Young Democrats from across the country that have run campaigns like this and/or have been elected to office themselves.

-Community Organizers Take On Election Reform
We can continue to increase youth turnout by removing certain barriers from our elections. Learn about same day voter registration, online registration, changing the voter registration age, and early voting- and how to get these things in your states.

-Community Organizers Take On Global Warming
It’s a great day to go green. It’s time for young people to lead the discussion on why global warming and the environment is an issue and how we plan to lead the charge. Learn everything from current and new technologies, to green, sustainable jobs. It's time to discuss how federal policy and energy initiatives directly affect young people and our communities and how we can be effective in communicating these new ideas!

-Community Organizers Take On Higher Education
With less than 25% of young people in college it's time we make Higher Education a frontline issue. Learn about the access and affordability barriers students are facing, and legislation around the issue.

-Community Organizers Hit The Field
Learn everything about field plans, how we utilize the peer to peer model, and how to manage your volunteers during a campaign.

-Community Organizers Utilize New Media and Online Organizing
We don’t just tweet to tweet. Learn about new media outlets, organizing online, and how to build new media into a coordinated campaign plan.

-Community Organizers Take on Healthcare
Over 15 Million young people are uninsured. Healthcare reform is a main issue right now in our communities and within government. Learn how you can represent the youth voice and ensure you are insured.

-Community Organizers Take on Marriage Equality
Marriage Equality is the civil rights battle of our time. Learn how we can pass marriage equality in every state and how to keep the momentum for this issue going strong!

-Community Organizers Take On Housing
We have all heard about the crisis in the housing and lending industries, but what does it all mean? Demystify the housing issue, how we found ourselves in this situation, and how it is affecting young people.

-Community Organizers Take on Redistricting
2010 is almost here and that means we can gain or lose Democratic districts. Learn how we can ensure congressional districts are drawn fairly and how we can mobilize young people and Democrats in these districts during an election.

Round Table Discussions and Briefings:

-YDA 101: New Member Orientation
New to YDA? Come find out a little bit about our history, our structure, what peer to peer is, and how the convention works. Meet YDA leaders, staff, and other new members like yourself and find out how to get more involved.

-Dream Act
Learn about the thousands of undocumented students in this country and the obstacles they face around Higher Education. We will discuss current legislation as well as grass roots advocacy that can be taken within your communities to ensure access and affordable education for ALL students.

-Foreign Policy
Learn what issues young Democrats are facing on a global scale and how we can take a stance on foreign policy and partner with young Democratic leaders from around the world.
Discussion Groups on Chapter Building
Starting a new chapter or simply want to grow your existing chapter? Brainstorm with your fellow chapter members and leaders: different leadership and meeting structures, best practices on recruitment and retention, and how to mobilize your chapter for YDA within your communities.

-Finance 101 and Finance 202
101: Learn the basics of fundraising and developing a workable finance plan for your chapter.
202: Put your fundraising trainings and best practices into action. Learn about Call Time and practice actual fundraising with your peers.

-Writing a Voter Registration Plan
Before we can begin turning out the vote for Democrats we have to make sure they’re registered! Learn how to write a voter registration plan that you and your chapter can enact in your communities.

-Religion in Politics
Engage in discussions with fellow Young Democrats of ways that religion intersects with politics.

-Demopolis 101 and Demopolis 202
101: Become more familiar navigating yourself around the site and all the ways it can benefit your chapter. Learn how to manage your lists, send out eblasts, and how to set up events.
202: Learn how to set up targeted actions, advocacy campaigns, petitions, and LTEs

-Community Service this Summer Summit
Learn how to get your chapter signed up for a National Day of Service project and who you can partner with to make sure your community benefits from your service project.

-How to Get on the 6 o'clock News and Look Good
Get interviewing techniques from a former CNN producer on how you can get yourself on the news and look good.

-So You Want To Host A Meeting?
So you think you want to host a YDA meeting, conference, or convention? Well we want you to as well, but we want you to know what you’re getting yourself into! Come to this training and hear from state and local chapter leaders that have hosted a meeting and see exactly what it takes.

Pictured: YDA Political Director Hailey Snow leading the new member orientation.

Pictured: Two great people who made sure the convention ran smoothly. YDA's own Hailey Snow and Katie Ford

Originally posted on www.everydaycitizen.com then www.kydburro.blogspot.com

Over the past 6 months my life has drastically changed from a semi-involved political activist who worked on local campaigns and did what was needed to be done in order to get those politicians who are good for my community elected, to now being a much more involved political activist who is constantly on conference calls, networking with people I barely know and becoming a friend to them and traveling across the State and in some cases to other States to go to events in order to help strengthen and build up the Democratic party. I by no means do this alone, which brings me to why I have decided to write about importance of youth being politically active.

Being apart of the Young/ College Democrats is a choice that I am able to say that I have no regrets in making. Joining a political organization like these allow you to become part of a network... better yet a family of young people through out the State and Nation who are all interested in doing the same thing as you. Getting Democrats elected and having a blast doing so. Now don't get me wrong this family does have its crazy cousins and weird aunts/ uncles but like any family there those people who are your favorites and you get together with on a regular basis even though your in Manhattan and they are in Topeka, Lawrence, Osage City or Kansas City.

Politics is like any other group activity out there, there are those big name players, the veterans and the new guys. The great thing about politics is that its all about getting out there and being known for what your doing, you don't have to be naturally talented or the biggest guy on the field, you just have to be a hard worker and willing to roll with the punches that come your way. Young people are perfect for politics because they know how certain issues effect their demographic which is normally largely underrepresented in policy making, and they have the energy to be the ones out knocking doors week after week and the know how to use social networking sites to spread their message instantly to hundreds or thousands of people.

My experience in numerous political campaigns has always given me a passion for personally being involved but my experience in the Young/ College Democrats has instilled in me a passion for youth involvement overall. In my opinion being involved in a cause, campaign or organization is one of the most positive things a young person can do. The earlier youth start finding their voice in these things the better, because only through their work and experience can they make a change in the world around them and influence those who do make the decisions in said world. I largely encourage all youth out there to become involved in something that speaks to their interests, to work for a positive change for their issue or for their candidate and enjoy doing it.

Giraffes used to be only about 9 ft tall and looked like antelopes. Through time, only taller and taller giraffes survived since they were the only ones that could reach the food higher up in the trees. The species was able to evolve and survive because they were able to reach beyond the low-hanging food, while other species could not.

In youth organizing there is also low-hanging fruit: college students. Most organizations and campaigns have primarily focused their efforts on college students because they are the easiest to reach. However, if we are going to evolve as a movement we need to reach beyond just organizing college students and start working on those young voters that are harder to reach.

The youth I am talking about are those in rural communities, in high school, those that never went to college, and those that are no longer in college.

The reason that these young voters are often neglected in youth organizing is that it requires extra effort to reach them. An organization can just show up to a college campus and have young people all around them. To reach out to non-college youth you have to do your research and spend time going to the places that they tend to congregate. With finite resources, it's not something many organizations are willing to do.

On my other blog I wrote a post about reaching out to rural youth. I polled a number of my Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn contacts. The results showed that there were places and events that young people rural areas can be found. Going out to do peer-to-peer contact in those places is important, especially since rural youth tend to communicate more through text messaging than the internet.

In 1968 Bobby Kennedy won the Indiana Democratic Primary because he was willing to go to places and talk to voters that are used to being ignored. At a rally in Kentucky, a woman that described herself as a staunch Republican brought a Kennedy sign home because she was "surprised he would stop at a small town like this and give us his consideration."

Our efforts may actually be more transformational when we are talking to people that are used to being ignored and are impressed that a Democratic organization is willing to take the time to find and contact them. It is a fundamental human rule that everybody likes to feel that they are worthwhile. These efforts in rural communities could be very effective in creating life-long Democrats, yet we tend not to engage them.

If the youth movement is going to continue to grow and thrive, it must expand beyond the low-hanging fruit of colleges. While it may seem daunting at first, the benefits will certainly be worth it.

Photo by cesarastudillo
Kennedy examples from The Last Campaign by Thurston Clarke

I’m still reading that book that is scaring the bejeeses outa me (pardon the pun) and feeling some serious hopelessness when it comes to the counter culture being created by the right wing to recruit the young folk. But then - Al Gore happened.

The interesting thing that I saw this week was an awesome comparable – Live Earth. A concert extravaganza, web tastic, with a holographic Al? The only thing that could make it better is Pauly Shore saying

“And when where not saving the environment, we're thinkin' of you, naked, thigh deep in tofu.”

As part of a larger examination into young people and their split from one sect of the political world to the other, I’ve been doing a lot of research into the youth evangelical movement.

I am – as a Kansan, always curious about this ultra-right group of people, what they are up to, how they are organizing, and how they are essentially doing what What’s the Matter with Kansas claims the poor sell themselves out for values votes. I would argue that evangelicals do the same thing. While we have a community of people who believe that it is their holy destiny to vote in the interest of their God – I see so many who sell out their own beliefs for a narrow agenda.

I mention that but, honestly my post has nothing to do with that – the larger piece I’m working on for Wiretap will. I don’t even want to address the irony that I’m watching the X-Files episode Signs and Wonders which is all about a Pentecostal minister that uses snake handling in his church but it turns out he’s actually Satan…

So, I started reading Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement by Lauren Sandler as part of this bigger project. I’m honestly not very far into it but what I’ve read thus far, just of Sandler’s interviews and questions, exploration, and the like of those who are intensely involved in this movement – has given me more of an understanding of the type and structure of organization and political organizing that is going on.

This seems particularly fitting given Mark's stellar interview with The Dude yesterday.

Two quick hits today that I won't be able to fully blog but you should definitely check out:

• Looking Out for Number One: Campus Progress asks why young people are ready to organize on behalf of everyone but ourselves.
• Who's Ahead? No, Seriously . . . : Uncle Jay at Press Think has a must read about the master narrative in our political campaigns and why our public debates are no longer a war of ideas, but a battle of polls.

And something to make you laugh this morning:

• FaceBook in 40 years.