“As chairman of the College Republicans, I come out and support all of the candidates who are on or near campus. So, I came here tonight to both hear what Ron Paul had to say and support him,” Twillman said following Paul’s Friday night appearance at the Iowa Memorial Union when roughly 1,000 people set aside their homecoming festivities in order to hear what the Texas congressman had to say.

“There are many more young people at Ron Paul events all the time than there are at any other candidates’ events because he speaks to the young people.”

Although the same could be said about Paul’s support in 2008, which did not lead to caucus night victory, Twillmann added that he is seeing such energy translating into organization.

“I know they are going to be caucusing [in 2012]. I know this because we have several Paul supporters who are showing up at our meetings each week and many of them are interested not only in caucusing themselves, but in getting others to caucus, running polling places and getting literature out. So, I’m very confident that they will caucus on January 3,” he said.

“I think the Paul supporters — at least those I’ve seen — are much more passionate. They definitely have seen what almost four years of Barack Obama has done, and I think they will be more involved. I think they can see the real-life impacts of the policies that the President makes … So, I really think that college kids and young people in general will continue to support Ron Paul even more so than last time. I think they are already organized and I think they will get even more so and really turn out people for the caucus.”

Bill Boll, of Manchester, and Roger Kistler, of Olin, aren’t college students, but they agree that Paul supporters like themselves are serious about getting an Iowa boost.

“We love Ron Paul,” Boll said. “We support him and we are working in our own counties for him. We want to see that man as president.”

Of those that turned out to see and hear Paul, roughly 75 percent were under the age of 25. But Kistler said the make-up of the audience just added to the experience.

“When you are a part of a crowd like this, it just makes you feel 10 years younger,” he said and laughed.

Boll, who described himself as a small businessman, said Paul’s message of individual liberty and personal freedom is something that resonates not only with college students but with Republicans of all ages.

“I do believe that we have lost a lot of freedom,” he said. “The tax burden is tremendous, the regulatory burden is becoming worse and Ron Paul is the only one of the candidates that ever spoke to me — I don’t mean personally — but spoke to my heart. No [Internal Revenue Service]. No regulation. He wants me to be able to run my business without government interference.”

America has, Boll said, 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the prison population.

“Not that I advocate doing drugs, but the war on drugs is making this like a criminal country,” he said. “These are good people that shouldn’t be in jail for the rest of their lives. It makes me sick. These are the things I hear Ron Paul addressing; issues of personal freedom.”

Kistler, also a small businessman, likes Paul’s message of returning to the principles of the U.S. Constitution.

“For 70 years we’ve been fighting wars without a declaration of war and that’s contrary to what the Constitution says,” he said. “The Congress is supposed to provide all the legislation, but we’ve got over 13,500 executive orders that have been issued by various presidents. That’s not what the Constitution said. It said that we should have only gold and silver as a currency, and if I show a $5 gold piece to people they wonder what it is.

“I think the thing that has most recently really made this extremely important is the fact that the current President targeted an American citizen for assassination. That’s contrary to the Fifth Amendment. That’s contrary to Article Three, Section 2, and completely ignored the concept of handling this type of situation in the Constitution. So what we are doing right now is just so far from what the Constitution has to say that we don’t really have, right now, what could be called a Constitutional government. I think we need to return to that and I believe [Paul] is the man who can do it.”

The difference from 2008, according to Boll, is that Paul has both paid and volunteer staff in each of Iowa’s 99 counties. Boll added that the Internet has been especially helpful in spreading Paul’s message without any media filter.

“When I first began hearing about Ron Paul, I was hearing what the media was telling me about him and I thought, ‘Whoa,’ and believed he was really out there,” Boll said.

“I thought, ‘Oh, he just wants everyone to smoke dope.’ Really, from listening to the media, that’s what I thought. But when I began listening to him and not what the media was saying about him, I understood that this was a freedom issue and not really about marijuana at all. I understood exactly what he was saying and, at this point, I couldn’t vote for anyone else. He’s the man.”

This was sent out yesterday: #

WASHINGTON D.C. – The right to vote is under attack in Florida, and so are the rights of voter registrations organizations focused on engaging young voters, including Rock the Vote, Southern Energy Network, HeadCount, Student PIRGs and other groups who work to expand the electorate. #

Florida’s State Senate is expected to pass Senate Bill 2086 this week. Among it’s proposed measures: #

•    Young volunteers who want to register classmates at, for example, college football games or concerts would have to take an in-person oath at local elections offices and be financially liable for completed voter registration forms.
•    Young voters who are now able to update their voter registration information, such as their address, at the polls will no longer be able to do that and would be forced to use provisional ballots, which are often not counted.
•    Busy young people with full-time school and work schedules who now have a 13-day early voting period would see that reduced to just 5 days.
•    Young people with questions at their polling place would not be able to receive legal assistance or other services from non-partisan election protection programs at the polls. #

If these intimidating and restrictive new measures are implemented, it could mean that the work of voter registration and engagement organizations who register and turnout hundreds of thousands of Florida voters could all be lost. #

Here’s what young people who work to register their peers are saying about SB 2086: #

“This bill will make it significantly harder for our volunteers to register voters, harder for young people in Florida to cast their ballots, and, ultimately, harder to have their ballots counted,” said Molly Benoit, a recent University of Florida graduate who served as Rock the Vote’s Florida State Coordinator during the 2010 midterm elections. “If I had been approached by a student on campus who wanted to volunteer with Rock the Vote at our next voter registration drive, I would have had to explain that they would be required to be on file with the state before I could allow them to volunteer. Add in the fact that volunteers would be personally liable for $50 per registration form and it becomes clear that this is an attempt to discourage students from registering their peers.” #

“Having the ability to change your address at the polls and have your vote count is critical if students are going to be able to vote.  This bill is a direct attack on our rights as students to have a say in who represents us in Florida,” said Jessica Okaty, a leader in the Southern Energy Network’s Power Vote campaign that registered more than 500 people at Florida International University in 2010. #

“I have volunteered with the HeadCount organization since 2004, and in that time I have registered countless voters at dozens of concerts.  It’s an amazing feeling for everyone involved when a new voter is welcomed into our democracy,” said Shari Beth Katz, a Team Leader with HeadCount in Miami.  “I’m shocked at the hypocrisy of elected officials who would simultaneously call for less government while denying selfless volunteers the right to provide an essential service to other citizens. Any legislator who would consider a measure that makes it harder for citizens to vote is unpatriotic and putting personal political gain over core American principles.” #

“This bill will make it harder for groups like ours to register new voters on college campuses and lead to many students who vote outside their home county being disenfranchised altogether. It will reduce the youth vote while serving no clear benefit. Pushing more voters to provisional ballots won’t add security to the elections process and all of the additional regulations are supposed to address a fraud problem that does not exist,” said Carley Sattler with the Florida Student PIRGs. #

“This attempt to silence the voices of Floridians and to add even more obstacles to the path of democracy should be ridiculed by all Floridians, regardless of party affiliation,” says Jelani Downing, a former organizer with Florida African-American and Caribbean Empowerment Alliance. “It is my hope that organizations which pride themselves on registering voters will only use this bill as motivation to register more voters. We will continue to fight for democracy by becoming even more thorough in our operations and more vigilant in our quest to provide a voice for all Floridians.” #

Young people are not sitting idly by as their rights are attacked. They’ve been mobilizing against the proposed legislation, rallying at the Capitol, testifying against the voter suppression bills, and lobbying their legislators, legislative leaders, and the Governor. #

#

An Oakland, Calif. rally, part of the National Day of Action (Flickr: greenforall.org)

It’s becoming apparent that the youth vote could be a key component of Tuesday’s electorate. Americans age 18 to 30 are expected to turn out in record numbers. This is what the Obama campaign has long been focusing on, since Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, does well with voters under 30, according to national polls.

If young voters meet these expectations and turn out to vote, their preferences could influence the electorate. That’s why political organizers and pollsters have been trying to determine exactly what those preferences are.

Illustration by:Matt Mahurin

Like other demographic groups, voters under age 30 are most concerned about the economy. Since, according to the polls, the majority of all voters view Obama as better able to handle economic issues than his opponent, Sen. John McCain, this could be one reason the Illinois senator attracts the youth vote.

But young voters are concerned about more than the economy. While their concerns frequently match those of other demographics, there’s at least one issue where they diverge: the environment.

The environment is the major exception for youth voters, according to Carroll Doherty, the associate director at the Pew Research Center. In an October poll, 64 percent of voters under age 30 said the environment is “very important,” compared to 55 percent of older voters.

“At a time when there is so much convergence in priorities,” Doherty said, “that is a noticeable, significant difference.”

He attributes the difference to greater environmental consciousness among young people. For example, young people are more concerned about human effects on global warming than any other age group, according to an April Pew poll.

What’s most noteworthy about this interest in the environment is that it crosses party lines.

Young Republicans and conservatives, for example, see a need for more investment in clean energy, said Ashley Barbera, communications director for College Republicans. “A lot of [them] support alternative energy but have different reasons for that support — whether it’s climate change or [cutting the] cost of energy or [reducing] dependence on foreign oil.” For more and more young people, she says, “climate change is something that needs to be addressed.”

In this way, young conservative voters diverge from older conservatives, since the GOP base has not called for action on climate change, according to groups like the Heritage Foundation.

Nonpartisan political organizers are also finding that young voters are bipartisan when it comes to the environment. Generation Vote, a coalition of 20 youth organizations working to get out the vote, declared climate change the No. 5 issue on its “Youth Agenda,” which ranks the nine issues most important to young voters.

Stephanie Young, Rock the Vote communications associate, also said that young people across the political spectrum want to see more done to control climate change using clean-energy technologies. “Among young people,” she said, “Democrats, Republicans and independents can agree that the environment is extremely important, and that climate change is a problem.”

That’s because, Young contends, younger generations “have always been at the cutting edge of what’s going on in environmental protection.” They have grown up knowing how important it is to recycle, conserve energy and conserve water. “We have a much different perspective than other generations,” she said.

Young people may also be interested in the environment because they tend to see environmental and economic interests as compatible, some organizers conjecture. That may explain why the creation of more green jobs has emerged as an important issue for them. During the National Day of Action for Green Jobs, in September, youth turnout at events across the country was impressive.

This video of the National Day of Action, produced by Rock the Vote and Wiretap Magazine, captures a number of young environmental activists working to bring green jobs to people of all economic backgrounds:

Jessy Tolkan, executive director of the Energy Action Coalition, an umbrella youth environmental group, is working to mobilize 1 million young Americans to vote on climate and energy issues Tuesday through its Power Vote campaign.

“This generation,” Tolkan said. “sees the economy and energy and the environment as 100 percent linked.” But this isn’t new, she adds, because young people have been at the forefront of the movement advocating more green jobs and greater clean-energy investment for at least two years.

Climate change has become a determinant in some young people’s vote. “What I hear time and time again from young voters, ” said Tolkan, “is that the defining issue of our time is going to be whether or not this generation in this country stood up and dealt with climate change and energy solutions — or whether we ignored the writing on the wall and allowed this catastrophe to happen.”

Tolkan also finds that young voters, whether Republican, Democratic or independent, are largely disappointed with the environmental rhetoric they’ve heard from both presidential candidates. “What I’ve heard from [them],” said Tolkan, “is that neither candidate has gone far enough to lay out how he is going to address [these issues].”

In any discussion of young voters, it can’t be ignored that national polls show Obama leading overwhelmingly with those under 30. Pew, for example, puts the Democratic nominee ahead, 68 percent to 24 percent.

Alexandra Acker, executive director for Young Democrats for America, says this is because of Obama’s stand on three of the most important issues to young people: the economy, the war in Iraq and the environment/energy. Young voters see those issues as connected, she says.

“Young people were the first group to turn away from the war — to see the war in Iraq as a war of energy,” she said. “Young people want a commonsense approach to breaking our dependence on oil. They want to invest in clean energy and new technologies. They want to find new energy but reduce our carbon footprint.”

Acker says more young people trust Obama’s platform than Sen. McCain’s. “Just because John McCain says he’s an environmentalist, doesn’t make it so,” she said. “He has low ratings from the environmental groups [because of his voting record on conservation].”

With young people expected to vote in record numbers, this portion of the electorate could wield great power. Acker says young voters may well make issue-based decisions on Tuesday, regardless of what others might expect.

“Contrary to every stereotype, young people are taking this election very seriously,” Acker continued. “They’re voting on the issues, not on personality. More than any other age group, they’re worried about our economy. We’re the ones who are going to inherit [economic problems]. We’re the ones who will inherit environmental problems.”

According to The Independent Florida Alligator, the university’s daily student newspaper, Josh Simmons, chairman of the “Gators for McCain,” attended an on-campus rally featuring Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden yesterday, not as a protester but as a supporter.

“I wanted to see the next vice president of the United States,” said Simmons.
Simmons said he voted for Obama about two weeks ago.
“I’ve seen a different McCain than the one I signed up to work for,” he said.

While just one student, Simmons’ conversion is another example of Obama’s cross-party appeal. In my experience, students who join party and campaign-affiliated groups tend to be among the most partisan of the partisans. This is especially true of student officers like Simmons. If even a few of them on the Republican side are persuadable, that doesn’t bode well for McCain’s prospects tomorrow.

“You should be worried,” he tells college students, but “President Obama” would address key priorities for young voters, from renewing the economy to helping loan repayment for graduates who do public service. After Schmidt’s brief pitch is over, you can hear a young voice off camera appraise the message: “OK, cool.”

PRODUCTION NOTES: This blunt testimonial is a concise appeal to young voters, who already overwhelmingly back Sen. Barack Obama, with a message from a hip, credible messenger on the economy.

Pew, the respected non-partisan research organization, reports that polls that exclude cell phones may be a bit off — and effectively biased against Sen. Barack Obama. (H/T Michael Connery, and Mark Blumenthal has a good summary here.) Based on three recent election surveys:

[T]here were only small, and not statistically significant, differences between presidential horserace estimates based on the combined interviews and estimates based on the landline surveys only. Yet a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin… As implied by these results, in each of the three polls, the cell-only respondents were significantly more supportive of Obama (by 10-to-15 percentage points) than respondents in the landline sample.

Regular landline polling is supposed to account for these trends, but Pew concludes that’s getting harder:

[A] substantial minority of the cell-only sample is younger than 30 – a demographic group that has consistently backed Obama this year. Traditional landline surveys are typically weighted to compensate for age and other demographic differences, but the process depends on the assumption that the people reached over landlines are similar politically to their cell-only counterparts. These surveys suggest that this assumption is increasingly questionable, particularly among younger people. (emphasis added).

This finding — even with its caveats — complicates most current polling coverage, which barely discusses the margin of error, let alone inaccuracies in the age and cell sampling.

Republicans have been complaining about a press bias against McCain, maybe Democrats will start flagging the polling bias against their candidate — and his young, cell-toting supporters.

Photo Credit: Mike Kline Flickr

Sen. Barack Obama needs young voters to keep turning out at unusually high rates in order to win in November. While his campaign adeptly mobilized them in the primaries, and continues to empower young operatives in senior positions, the Democratic National Convention disappointed some youth advocates by under-using young people on stage, as I described in a TWI post this week.

That post, as it happens, disappointed other Democratic operatives and many readers.

According to a Democratic staffer who worked on the convention in Denver, young Democrats were indeed spotlighted. From an email to TWI:

On Monday, Amanda Kubik, a 26-year-old young delegate and Obama volunteer from North Dakota, spoke to the full convention hall from the podium with [seven] young delegates around her… Also, in cable primetime, we had a speech by Katherine Marcano, a 23-year-old supporter of Barack Obama from Iowa. …

This information drew a correction from Mike Connery, a youth advocate who criticized the convention, for he maintains that young Democrats should have received a more “high-profile speaking slot.” (As I wrote, the best slot for youth went to a campaign state director, who gave two addresses about text messages at Invesco Field on Thursday.)

Also, in a seperate essay, Connery responded to my point that Obama deserves credit for going beyond symbolism to empower young voters within his campaign management. Connery stressed that the problem lies more with a sclerotic DNC:

Ari is right that my critique is somewhat parochial when viewed in the context of how Obama is changing this dynamic. It is more important that young people are put in positions of power within campaigns and the party structure without the need to section them off in a “youth silo.” And I hold out hope that Obama, riding a wave of youth support, and a staff that does in fact have many young people in key positions, will make that a reality throughout all levels of the party.

But it’s important to note that Obama is the exception, not the rule. My purpose was to point to the tension that still exists within the party when it comes to giving young people a seat at the table. The convention speaking schedule was a visible symbol of that shortage of access young people still have within the party despite all of Obama’s changes.

Finally, several young commenters weighed in with a collective shrug:

I am 26 and I think O did great at the convention. I thought the whole convention pretty much rocked it. …I have several friends who are voting for O, and none of them were upset bc there was no youth speaker at the convention. That wasnt what is was about… for the first time in our lives we feel like we are apart of something great. That Obama actually took the time to listen, he didnt write us off like most politicians….

Wow… talk about ‘reaching’ for a problem. I know not one young voter who is not ‘fired up’ about supporting and volunteering for Senator Obama!

I understand this blogger’s point, and I myself also would have very much liked to have seen and heard some younger faces and voices on the actual convention stage, but nothing speaks louder for the younger generation, GenX and Millenials, than the nomination of Obama. Obama’s nomination is our voice and, whether appreciated or not, our announcement that we are here to participate in and drive the Democratic Party going forward.

On this one, the commenters have the last word.

(Photo Credit: Isaac Viel; Child at Obama rally.)

In a twist on the normal convention finale, the prominent figures — donors, elected officials and media celebrities like Dan Rather — looked somewhat like the interlopers. Younger people dressed in jeans and shorts — many not of voting age — seemed decidedly more at home, as if they were attending an open-air concert and were fully versed in the festival ritual. The wave broke out in Section 338 just after Mr. Gore’s speech ended and spread quickly around the stadium.

Justin Rockefeller, a youth voting advocate who has attend several conventions with his father, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, told me that this year’s convention was the youngest he’s ever seen. “From my memory it definitely looks younger — not so much on delegate floor, but more so in the hallways and especially outside,” he observed.

But all is not well with the youth vote.

Michael Connery, an analyst of youth engagement and the author of “Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority,” worries that young voters were “seen but not heard” at the DNC:

Turnout among young voters in the Democratic primary was double the level recorded in 2004, and young voters broke heavily in favor of Sen. Obama. In the Iowa caucuses, young voters performed on par with the “reliable” senior vote, and were widely credited with providing Sen. Obama’s margin of victory… Despite this unprecedented youth involvement at the convention, young people were more likely to be seen than heard by the delegates and party officials in Denver….

Most surprisingly, the one place young voters were completely absent at the Democratic National Convention was at the podium. During my four nights at the convention I did not see one young voter or youth organizer – from CDA, YDA, SFBO or otherwise – address the convention. Thursday at Invesco Field was no better. Not one young person took the stage that night.

These are important critiques. It’s odd that Obama’s team did not tout more youth stories and voices during prime time, since he needs to keep his young base energized for turnout.

There was, however, at least one major youth speaker on Thursday night at the stadium. Ray Rivera, 29, a Colorado state director for the Obama campaign, addressed the 80,000 person crowd — twice. He was promoting, naturally, a text message organizing program, which recruited 30,000 new numbers that night alone. There was a big map and everything. I followed up with Connery, but he was not impressed. He emailed from the Republican National Convention:

I don’t count Ray Rivera’s time on the stage. He may be young, but his purpose on stage was not to represent youth at the convention, it was to list build for the campaign. He was not there as an advocate for young people on the many pressing issues we face, and even if he were, one slot in four nights would still be skimpy representation considering what young people have done for Democratic candidates since 2006.

So there. It doesn’t count and even if it did it’s not enough. But that vision is a bit too cramped.

It is good that Obama entrusted his operation in a key state like Colorado to a young operative; just as it was good for Obama to put so much faith in young web organizers who upended U.S. politics with their online strategy, social networking and web fund-raising. Joe Rospars, Sam Graham-Felsen and Chris Hughes, for example, are all 27 or younger.

In many ways, empowering young people without putting them in youth constituency silos is better than just checking the youth box with some official speaker. Rivera had a huge — probably nerve-racking — role on the Big Night to actually do something in his official role, albeit related to the youth vote, rather than just giving a quick talk about how Barack inspires students.

There could have been more young speakers on stage all week — and it will be interesting to see the contrast for Republicans in St. Paul — but the text message addresses were a good start

For a full video breakdown of Obama’s youth edge, here’s a clip of a recent panel I attended on the Youth Vote in 2008.