BS-O-Meter On High

An article published in The Tidings, a Catholic weekly, begins by commenting that "the Internet can empower young people to be the deciding factor in the 2008 presidential election," a phenomenon the nation is currently witnessing with the extension of politics onto the social networking website Facebook, the online video website YouTube, and some of the presidential candidates websites (that's six different websites for your viewing pleasure!), all of which are most accessed by young people.

However, the article then quotes Stephen Schneck, chair of the politics department at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, who expects that turnout among young voters to be minimal in 2008 because "they don't feel like they have as much of a stake in society as adults do. The Internet is not going to change that in any way."

What? According to the recent New York Times/CBS/MTV poll of 17 to 29-year-olds, 65% believed that this election was one of the most important if not THE most important election of their lifetimes, while young voters also identified that the War in Iraq, environmental protection and climate change, and the status of America's health care are the most pressing issues today. Even 16 months away from the general election, all of these issues are being heavily addressed in the campaign dialogue.

The 2008 election will be an opportunity to finally bury the misconceived idea that youth aren't engaged in politics. The 2004 presidential election saw an increase of four million young voters from 2000, while the 2006 midterm election had an increase of two million young voters from 2002. The third time's the charm: let's break these records in 2008 and prove Schneck wrong and show that we DO care about the future of this country!

If only they had cell phones at Tiananmen

With all of the hype surrounding the iPhone this week, I figured it would be appropriate to blog about how cell phones are being used for a political purpose on the other side of the globe.

Protesters in Xiamen, China used text messages to coordinate a protest against the construction of a chemical plant in their city. Circumventing the censoring capabilities of the government, environmentalists sent text message blasts to town residents warning them of the dangers of a chemical plant, and coordinated a protest on June 1 and 2, turning out 8,000 and 10,000 people respectively.

Even more impressive was the way journalists used their phones to cover the event:

'Citizen journalists carrying cellphones sent text messages about the action to bloggers in Guangzhou and other cities, who then posted real-time reports for the entire country to see.

'The second police defense line has been dispersed,' Wen Yunchao, one such witness, typed to a friend in Guangzhou. 'There is pushing and shoving. The police wall has broken down.'

Just goes to show how technology can empower the people. The possibilities for democracy are endless. I couldn't help but to think about how a movement like this could ultimately be used to start a revolution in a countries like Iran, where young people are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way their government is treating them. As the people of Xiamen have shown, where information flows, democracy follows.

New Poll Illuminates Young Voters' Presidential Preferences and Political Bent

A new CBS News/New York Times/MTV poll determined that presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have the most enthusiasm behind them, at least from young voters (17-29 years old); Obama leads Clinton by one percentage point with 18% of the support, while former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani is third with only 4%. Additionally, nearly 75% of the young Americans interviewed said they were already registered to vote, and the rest planned to register prior to the 2008 election; they also listed the economy and the war in Iraq as their top concerns, followed by education and the environment.

According to the New York Times, young voters are also becoming more liberal: 28% described themselves as such, compared with 20% of the general population, while 27% of young voters called themselves conservative, compared with 32% of the general population. Additionally, 44% said that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, compared with 28% of the public at large. Furthermore, 52% of young voters say that Democrats rather than Republicans come closer to sharing their moral values.

Voter Pre-Registration in Rhode Island

The Rhode Island state legislature has passed a bill that allows 16 and 17-year-olds to "pre-register" to vote, making them automatically eligible to vote once they turn 18--for the second time. The very same bill passed in June of 2006, but Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri vetoed the bill. FairVote, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization which advocates fraud-free voter participation, contends that the passage of the bill will prevent bureaucratic sluggishness since voter registration applications would be spread out over time rather than received in a glut right before a voter registration deadline prior to an election. The life of the bill will most likely be determined by the end of this week.

Would you like a little presidential election with your technology?

MTV News has an interesting article documenting the "political media flood" that presidential candidates have already started: daily (or hourly) text messages, blog entries, RSS feeds, emails, YouTube videos, Facebook friend requests, live Web chats, desktop widgets, and even cell phone ringtones. The article has a list of many of the specific technologies each of the candidates employ.

Polls & Cell Phones

As of February 2007, more people have cell phones than fixed telephone lines, both in the United States and internationally, and more than two in three Americans have a subscription to cell phone service. However, most political polls still exclusively use fixed telephone lines, and now supporters of 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) are claiming that their candidate's performance in recent polls--he hovers around one percent among self-identifying Republican voters--is a result of pollsters undercounting voters who use cell phones rather than land lines. The online magazine Slate argues that this reasoning is fallacious: the cell-phone-only crowd tend to be poorer, liberal, and younger. However, Rep. Paul's communication director claims it is the tech-savvy libertarian youth that overwhelmingly support Representative Paul.

The Pew Research Center has conducted research investigating the cell phone/landline which has illuminated some interesting discrepancies: the average difference between landline and cellular-only samples is 7.8%, but only 48.5% of cellular-only users are registered voters, as opposed to 83.3% of the landline users survey.

Supreme Court Rules on Student's Right to Free Speech

This morning, the Supreme Court ruled on Morse v. Frederick, a case which involves a then-18-year-old high school senior (Frederick) at a Juneau, Alaska high school who was suspended for ten days from school for displaying an eight-foot banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" during a rally associated with the Olympic Torch Relay in 2002. The rally and display of the sign was held off of school property. Frederick sued the school system for violating his constitutional right to free speech. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the majority opinion, ruled in favor of the school system for Frederick's sign promoted illegal drug use. Read a summary of the court's ruling here, or read a PDF of the court's entire decision here.

Going to College?

The Senate Education Committee and the House Education Panel have begun work on a massive overhaul of the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry. To help rid problems associated with student loan agencies, the committees have proposed loan systems that will cut federal subsidies to lending companies by as much as $19 billion with savings being redirected into student aid.

The legislation has also proposed new rules designed to increase borrowers’ propensity to use the programs such as a cap that will ensure borrowers pay no more than 15% of their discretionary income for federally backed student loans as well as a clause that relieves borrowers of their debt after 25 years. Other potential ideas include piloting a "loan auction" in which companies would bid to participate in the federal loan program by stating the lowest subsidies they would accept from the government.

The two chambers have so far proposed bills that contain slightly different ideas on just how the final legislation will look. Ultimately the two will need to find a way to reconcile differences including the actual amount of subsidiary money cut, however senior officials predict that the process will be a short one and could be complete as early as the end of July.

In recent years the student loan industry has come into great scrutiny following what are believed to be unfair practices limiting student's access to loans and making debts insurmountable. Supporters of the bill hope it will be able to suppress the partisan squabble over student loans, which, if early indicators hold true, may be justified optimism.

As Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) explains: "This legislation will help reverse the crisis in college affordability…It will restore balance to our broken student loan system by reducing unnecessary lender subsidies."

Voter Registration Victory in North Carolina

In an effort to expand voter registration especially among young voters, the North Carolina State Senate approved a bill which would allow potential voters to both register up to three days before any election as well as cast an early ballot at that time ("one-stop voting"). Existing NC law requires voters to register at least 25 days before an election. Senator Larry Shaw, a supporter of the bill, said that "[young voters are] a segment of our communities that is not active. They need to be enfranchised. We need to empower these young men and women," and that later registration deadlines and one-stop voting would certainly help youth become more active in the political process.

Google Goes Environmental

Remember when Google was just a simple search engine back when it debuted in 1998? Well, now that it's grown into a giant corporation, expanding into applications, mail services, video platforms (including the purchase of video giant YouTube), it's also beginning to throw around a bit of political weight, especially when it comes to environmental conservation.

Earlier this week, Google announced that it was voluntarily reducing or offsetting all of its carbon emissions by the end of 2007. To make the cuts, Google has invested (this interactive link is really cool!) in the largest corporate solar panel installation to date on its Californian campus, with 9,212 panels generating enough energy to fully power 1,000 residential homes. Google is also launching programs to make its computers and servers more energy efficient, in addition to purchasing carbon offsets abroad, which supposedly reduce overall global carbon emissions in an attempt to slow global warming.

In addition, Google has unveiled plans to increase the amount of plug-in hybrid vehicles across the country, both by creating parking infrastructure at its California headquarters where employees can plug into the electrical grid as well as by funding similar initiatives across the country. "This is just a start," Google Chairman and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a release issued by The Climate Group, an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing business and government leadership on climate change which is assisting Google in its transition. "We are actively looking for more opportunities to help tackle climate change."

Today, Google announced it's newest approach: heading to Capitol Hill, where it will try to persuade politicians and energy companies, as well as the average American computer user to work together to reduce carbon emissions.

Climate change has become a forefront issue both in the current U.S. Congress, within individual states, in the current presidential campaigns, and among young voters especially. Do you think the government should take more of a role in tackling the issue of global warming, or are private companies like Google doing a good enough job by themselves? Let's hear what you think!

It's Official!

The U.S. Census Bureau is confirming what exit polls had previously predicted: 10.8 million young voters participated in the 2006 election, as compared with 8.9 million in 2002, making it the second election in a row where young voters’ increase in turnout outpaced that of any other age bracket.

Young Voters in Japan

The political importance of the Millennial Generation is not just an American phenomenon. Rather, young voters are becoming an important group of voters in other countries.

In Japan, it was younger voters who provided the core support for the former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. However, Koizumi's successor, current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has increasingly lost support from Millennials: a June online survey found Abe's support with young voters to be at a paltry 16%, which some articles attribute to confusion about Abe's mismanagement of the country's pension system and a series of scandals involving political fundraising. Some predict that because of the widespread youth disapproval, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party will take a hit in upcoming parliamentary elections. Shigeki Uno, an associate professor of political science at the University of Tokyo, said that "depending on how the ruling coalition or opposition parties address the pension issue, there is a possibility that these young people will make decisions as voters responsible for changing the course of politics."

Now who dare say that young voters are apathetic and unimportant when they're causing political change on the other side of the globe?

Environmental Action: Happening In Locations Near You

A new report by the New Politics Institute on the politics of the Millennial Generation speculated that the generation "is poised to dramatically alter the 21st century cultural and political landscape." The report also suggests that the Millennial Generation is in favor of environmental action. Environmental protection is widely considered to be a "youth issue," a conception supported by the report's polls which show that 51% of 18-22 year olds are "strongly concerned" with environmental issues--a higher proportion than any other generational grouping. What are American youth doing about this issue this summer?

-This concern of the country's young people about global warming has been "fueled" into the Campus Climate Challenge, which provides support for high school and college students striving to curb global warming, reduce pollution from their campuses, and lobby for a clean energy future. The Challenge already has 37 partner organizations and over 500 local chapters across the United States and Canada. And despite the fact that it's summer, many of the groups are remaining active.
-Two marches for climate action, led by youth activists, will be occurring in Iowa and New Hampshire this summer from August 1-5. Find out more information and check out the team's progress here.
-What's Your Plan?, a new project of the student PIRGS, is sending a team of students to question all of the 2008 presidential candidates on their plan for various youth issues, including global warming, demanding substantial answers rather than just empty rhetoric. What's Your Plan? events will be happening at campaign events across the country.

Driving Teens to the Polls

Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist just signed a measure that will drop the state’s voter pre-registration age from 17 to 16 years old to coincide with the state’s driver’s license age. Supporters of the measure hope the convenience of registering to vote while getting a drivers license will ultimately result in greater youth turnout in upcoming elections. The new drivers who register will be sent a voter identification card on their 18th birthday in an effort to further simplify the process.

Though still unable to vote, the teens also can now work as poll workers prior to turning 18.

Young people DO care!

Successful registration efforts in one California county have helped debunk the myth that young people simply have no interest in politics, proving that, when targeted, young people do vote. Voter registration for 18-19 year old citizens in Sacramento County, located in the state’s central valley and boasting its capitol city, rose from 5,131 in 2005 to 9,373 this year following two years of county efforts to target young voters.

These efforts began as a joint venture between county officials and the local school system, which staged mock elections, distributed voter registration forms and offered peer-to-peer help to students in order to teach the value of casting a vote.

As 17-year-old student Matt Carson, who cited his views on Iraq, the way we secure our borders, and how his paycheck is taxed as motivations for registering, put it: “Someone's taking you seriously. It's not a high school vote for homecoming queen."

Previous election results show that these same citizens show up to vote when registered. In the 2006 mid-term elections 67% of registered 18-19 year olds in the county voted compared to just 59% of overall voters.

New Meaning to the "Dollar Menu"

The average food stamp recipient receives just $21 a week in food stamps. When distributed between seven days and three meals a day, that leaves just $1 a meal. And that is the average food stamp recipient.

Taking note of these figures a group of Congressmen, including the two leaders of the House Hunger Caucus and two others, decided to take part in the “Food Stamp Challenge” where they would spend a week surviving on just $21 a week for food.

During the challenge, which actually took place back in mid-May, the representatives discovered that surviving on $21 a week was no easy feat. Forced to put aside their often lavish eating habits, the participants instead found themselves eating what amounted to high calorie, low nutrition-filled meals.

Michael Pollan highlighted this trend towards unhealthy diets among low-income citizens in his New York Time’s article. In the article he attributes the trend to government initiatives, including the just-passed Farm Bill, that have resulted in unhealthy “junk” food being overproduced at low costs due to the various agricultural resources that are needed to produce them.

Inspired by their research and the challenge, the two leaders of the House Hunger Caucus have drafted an initiative that would add $4 billion dollars to the annual federal food stamp budget.

Regardless of this bill’s future, the “Food Stamp Challenge” has sparked a much-needed discussion on the eating habits of the nation’s poorest citizens.

The Millennial Generation--A force in '08

An article on ABCnews.com today discusses some issues very close to our hearts here at Rock the Vote. In "Folly of Youth or Trove of Votes?" Jennifer Parker talks about the role young voters played in the 2006 midterm elections, the most effective strategies for targeting young voters, and the plans for youth outreach (or lack thereof) among the '08 Presidential candidates.

The article focused on the political involvement of the Millennial Generation--a demographic that made of 21% of the electorate in 2006, and is estimated to constitute more than a third of the electorate within the decade. And, they're more engaged with the world around them than their Generation-X predecessors:

"Young people right now are just way more engaged than they've ever been," said Heather Smith, director of Young Voter Strategies, a nonpartisan voter mobilization advocacy group financed by the Pew Research Center and based at George Washington University. "They're quite angry about things like the war, and they're very worried about the economy and getting a job and affording health care," said Smith

However, the article seems to snub the potential power of the youth vote (youth folly??), citing the fact that voters aged 18-29 made up only 12% of the electorate in the 2006 elections, despite the massive size of their generation.

But, could this be because candidates refuse to address the issues that matter most to young people? Or because they assume young people are apathetic and ignore them altogether? I think so, and so do the folks at Student Public Interest Research Groups: "Frankly, it's because the candidates don't spend the money or the time engaging young people," says Dave Rosenfeld. As the article points out, more and more young voter advocacy groups are trying to get political candidates to engage young voters, pointing out their huge size and civic involvement. As our own Lindsey Berman said, "The party that realizes this and mobilizes the youth vote will reap the rewards."

Are the '08 candidates responding? Granted they've all got Facebook groups and MySpace pages, but some are leaving youth outreach to their Webmasters. And as the article points out, online tools are great, but there's nothing like good ol' fashioned word-of-mouth.

Think we deserve better? Speak up, and prove that we're a generation to be reckoned with.

"Friends in High Places"

TIME Magazine’s got an entertaining essay by Joel Stein about the ’08 Candidates’ MySpace pages. He goes on to rank each candidate’s page.

Would a candidate's MySpace page influence the way you vote? What's your take?