Campaign strategists focusing on young voters: In 2004, we set out with our own ambitious goals of registering 1 million young voters and increasing turnout by 3-5%. When the dust settled, we had registered 1.4 million and turnout spike up more than 10%.

While the credit goes to the young voters who got serious about the future of their country, there were many, many organizations that played a big role in sparking the fire. Our strategy always was to persuade the major institutions---the Republican and Democratic Parties, the presidential campaigns, the media, the non-profit campaign organizations---that young voters should be a target, that they can be reached with a little investment.

The success of our youth vote coalition in making the case to these major institutions has a lot to do with the amount of time and money that was spent to include young voters in the process. Bush and Kerry fought over young people. Young people responded by turning out in droves.

So now here we are in 2006 and we have to start it all over. Here's an article about how the process is unfolding.

The nation’s youngest voters — those age 18 to 24 — have for years participated in elections at much lower rates than those for the general public. And since political strategists develop their campaign plans to go where the votes are, they have generally put little emphasis on getting young people to the polls.

But those truisms of American politics may be changing. With both parties giving a modest boost to their efforts to attract the 18-24 crowd, young voters’ participation in the 2004 election showed an 11 percentage-point increase over the 2000 election — their largest four-year increase since the voting age was lowered to 18 from 21 in 1971.

Polling done after the November 2005 elections for governor of New Jersey and Virginia showed youth turnout jumping in certain student-dense precincts too.

Now, with the 2006 midterm congressional campaigns gearing up, various political consultants are pinpointing young voters as major targets.