Rock the Vote just came out with a nice two-page fact sheet that lays out the essential numbers behind the surge in turnout for young people in the 2008 campaign. We’ve been talking a lot about this phenomenon, and we had a Rock the Vote person speak at our day-long event last Friday, but sometimes it’s nice to look at the cold, hard facts.
Young people from age 18 to 29 have doubled their numbers in the presidential primaries this year. This is the combined number of all youth in both parties and is measured against the last competitive primary (2004 for Dems and 2000 for Republicans).
If you look at individual state numbers, some of the states tripled the turnout of young people, and no state with valid numbers showed less than a 40 percent increase.
So you may say that, sure, youth turned out, but so did all kinds of groups. However, youth increased their turnout by much more than any age group. This is measured by the all-important percentage “share” of the electorate. If you consider all ages taking a slice of the pie of the electorate, the Millennial Generation’s slice grew by taking more of the pie from the slices of the other age groups.
In the average of all Democratic primaries, youth went from 10 percent of the 2004 primaries to 14 percent of the 2008 ones.
In every single state that held a Democratic primary so far, the youth “share” of the electorate went up. In Iowa, they went as high as 22 percent of the electorate. Almost a quarter of all voters were Millennials there, in the state that started Obama’s rise.
The Republican numbers for increases in share of the youth vote are less dramatic, and in a few states they did not increase, but nevertheless, the general trend is playing out there too. Youth of all ideological stripes are more engaged in politics than we have seen in a long time, though that is particularly true on the Democratic and progressive side.
We at the New Politics Institute have been promoting this important constituency for years and it is incredibly gratifying to see this playing out so dramatically on the ground and so graphically in the numbers.
Submitted by Maggie Barker on Tue, 05/13/2008 - 11:31am.
Update: Farm Bill conference report now available --http://agriculture.senate.gov. The conference report is expected to be considered this week by both the Senate and House before being sent to the White House.
With respect to trade and the Farm Bill, U.S. farm subsidies are usually the topic du jour. But this week the House Ways and Means Committee is making a special effort to highlight other trade-related provisions in the Farm Bill. These provisions are not terribly exceptional, and have been circling the trade world for a while now, but it is interesting to note how House Democrats are marketing them -- as tools that can help not just to alleviate poverty (the standard argument) but to ease the global food crisis and ensuing riots in some parts of the world. Global prices of staple foods have risen more than 40 percent in the past year and world stocks are at their lowest since the early 1980s. Kudos for Ways and Means for seeing the linkages between trade and the food crisis and working with the Ag Committee to add these new trade provisions that specifically target poorer countries.
House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel on the Farm Bill's trade preferences provisions:
The Farm Bill should promote nutrition and enhance food access at home and abroad. You can’t always spread democracy with a rifle and this bill improves on existing measures to address the crisis in Haiti caused by rising food prices and persistent poverty. By extending and strengthening provisions that would soon expire, we can help give a sense of certainty to investors to continue the economic growth and development we have built in the Caribbean region, while creating new opportunities for American workers, farmers and businesses.
This year's Farm Bill includes additional trade preferences for Haiti that relax and expand the HOPE Act's rules for duty-free treatment of Haitian apparel. These rules also create incentives to use U.S. imputs, thereby providing new opportunities for American workers, farmers, and businesses. According to Ways and Means, these additional preferences will help Haitian industry attract new investment and create immediate jobs, and generate income to help workers pay for increased food costs and other necessities.
The Farm Bill also extends the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) for new two years. CBI provides preferences for textiles, apparel, and other goods, and has helped to raise the living standards and strengthened the economies of several Caribbean nations. Current CBI preferences are scheduled to expire on September 30, 2008.
On a related note, NDN recently endorsed the Global Poverty Act, which is designed to help the United States develop a strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015.
As a way to set the mood for today's West Virginia Primary, I will go with the obvious choice and ask you to listen to John Denver's classic.
Today, voters from Wheeling to Weirton will head to the polls in the Mountain State from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. to allocate West Virginia's 28 delegates. At 7:45 p.m., Keith Olberman, Wolf Blitzer and Bill O'Reilly will all call the race for Senator Clinton.
Former President Bill Clinton is predicting an 80-20 victory for the Senator from New York in tonight's primary which would be relative to Huntington, WV's Thundering Herd of Marshall University's 48-23 loss last season to their upstate rival from Morgantown, the Mountaineers of West Virginia University. Chances are very good that Senator Clinton's staff will be burning their couches as is the tradition in West Virginia following a big win (or a disappointing loss).
I wanted to post a quick overview for those who stumble upon the NDN blog:
Blocks to the right - there are a number of "blocks" to the right that have different sets of content in them. At the top is the Search block, where you can check our posts which date back to June, 2006. (We have posts from before then that we're hoping to backfill.) Then you have our Upcoming Events block, which just highlights upcoming NDN events. Below that is where you can subscribe to our RSS feed, and below that are links to our Senior Bloggers' blogs. This is useful if you want to read one person's commentary and are looking for it fast. (You can also access these blogs by clicking on the user's picture, then clicking "View recent blog entries" or you can click "[User name]'s blog" at the bottom of each post. Then there's our Popular Content block, which updates automatically due to which posts you find most interesting. Below that is our Rock the Vote voter registration widget, our "Places We Go" block, and the YouTube video block, which gives you a sampling of our videos on YouTube.
Comments - We love hearing what you think, so if you want to leave a comment, just create an account, log in and you'll be ready to go! If you have any troubles with this, I'd be glad to help you out. Just write me an e-mail at tvalentine@ndn.org.
That's all for today, but I'll be back to post more on this in the days ahead.
Two central dynamics are now taking over the Presidential campaign - the enormous, even historic, structural advantage of the Democrats, and Obama's new "surge", brought about through the early stages of his imminent victory over Senator Clinton.
Poll after poll these last few years have documented the emergence of a whole new political dynamic in American politics - the end of the conservative ascendency, the collapse of the GOP brand and the rise of the Democratic brand. Simply put, the country is more Democratic today than it has been since at least 1982 and perhaps all the way back to the 1960s. Today's Washington Post has a new national poll which again captures the yawning gap between the two parties, and the strong wind blowing behind the Democrats as they head into 2008 (for further evidence of this note huge fundraising and turnout advantage for the Dems so far in 2008).
A big looming question over the Presidential race has always been would the Democratic nominee be able to match the 10-15 spread between the two parties, resulting in what could be a truly realigning election and the dawn of a new progressive era? So far there has been little evidence of this, and indications have largely pointed to a very close general election.
But in the last week, there are signs that Obama's slowly emerging "victory" over Senator Clinton is beginning to alter that dynamic. Winners often get a bounce from their victory. It can be a few points or much more. And given that Senator Clinton is still in the race, it would be surprising for the Obama bounce to be more than a few points. But looking at the Post poll, the new LA Times poll, Rasmussen and Gallup, there is evidence that Obama is in the early stages of a bounce. He now leads Senator Clinton in all these polls by a larger margin than he has at any time in the campaign, consistently in double digits now (destroying her argument to be a stronger general election candidate). But he also is now starting to show three, six and in the Post poll, seven point advantages over Senator McCain.
While the Post makes the case that at this point McCain is outperforming the GOP and is showing remarkable early strength, I think that interpretation, while partially true, does not really capture what is happening in the race (particularly on the day GOPer Bob Barr entered the race, again showing how hard it is going to be for McCain to take full control over his party). Given the nature of the Democratic race, we really have no idea what a true McCain-Obama match up looks like. Senator Obama has yet to go through his ascension to be the Democratic chief, and all the public benefit that accrues from winning. This week, we are starting to see the public in the early stages of seeing Obama now as the Democratic nominee, and his numbers are rising across the board. But has he has not yet really won yet. I don't think at this stage he has risen as far has he will once Senator Clinton drops out of the race. He is in a sort of "mid-bounce." Which given that Senator Obama is now up mid- single digits now without having fully won, and given that the structural gap between the two parties is between 10-15 points, means he is likely to keep climbing over the next few weeks.
So, to me, this new Post poll should not be a comfort to the GOP, but yet another reminder of the catastrophic legacy of the age of Bush, and another early sign of what may be an historic realigning election to come in 2008 (the Mississippi U.S. Senate special election will be another sign).
For more on the dawn of a new political era, be sure to read our recent magazine article, The 50-Year Strategy: A New Progressive Era.
Moveon.org has just announced the winner of their Obama in 30 Seconds ad contest. It has been a very successful project with over 5.5 million votes cast and over 1,000 videos submitted. Peter Leyden discussed the contest earlier on our blog here.
Personally, I find the winning ad to be quite powerful. It strikes a nice bi-partisian tone while simulatenously packing in a multifaceted agrument that addresses many of Obama's perceived weaknesses. It features a white male (maybe working class?) who is a military vetern (national security) and at one moment appears with a flag flying in the background (patriotism). While not as creative as many of the other submissions, the ad is able to present a strong advocate that may appeal to a constituency that Obama has struggled with as of late. This ad certainly shows the wisdom of the crowd, and perhaps, the wisdom of Ben Affleck, one of many celebrity judges.
MSNBC reports that MoveOn.org will air the ad in Ohio, Wisconsin and Colorado spend around $200,000.
Many thanks to all of the speakers who participated in Friday's New Tools, New Audiences forum. In case you missed it (or even if you didn't), take a look at our information on the New Tools Campaign, including:
And be sure to check out the photos from Friday's New Tools event. Here are just a few of them, and you can click on each to see an enlarged version. To view photos from all of our events, please click here. We will have video of the entire day's events up shortly.
John McCain has a new ad up and is giving a speech today in Oregon on climate change, a signature distinction that he likes to draw between himself and President Bush. McCain’s strategy on this issue is to try to position himself as a moderate, and this will be a key issue for him to build his maverick image upon.
Take a look at the new ad:
This ad places McCain in the middle on climate and strikes at others as being "extreme," presumably mainstream Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other. Look for more messaging like this out of the McCain team as the campaigns move into general election mode and McCain tries to neutralize climate change as an issue for the Democrats as he hunts for the middle that he will need to win in November.
McCain’s plan, which David Roberts at Grist calls "better than expected but behind the curve," is part of an important moment in American politics, as it means that the next president will surely do something about Climate Change. It is important to remember, however, that the something on climate all the candidates offer is not the same.
Update: Today's Washington Post features an excellent article by Julie Eilperin entitled "Environmental Stances Are Balancing Act for McCain." A sample:
But an examination of McCain's voting record shows an inconsistent approach to the environment: He champions some "green" causes while casting sometimes contradictory votes on others.
The senator from Arizona has been resolute in his quest to impose a federal limit on greenhouse gas emissions, even when it means challenging his own party. But he has also cast votes against tightening fuel-efficiency standards and resisted requiring public utilities to offer a specific amount of electricity from renewable sources. He has worked to protect public lands in his home state, winning a 2001 award from the National Parks Conservation Association for helping give the National Park Service some say over air tours around the Grand Canyon, work that prompts former interior secretary and Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt to call him "a great friend of the canyon." But he has also pushed to set aside Endangered Species Act protections when they conflict with other priorities, such as the construction of a University of Arizona observatory on Mount Graham.
The Rasmussen daily track has seen a 15 point shift from Clinton to Obama in the last ten days. The last two nights of their daily track now has Obama up over Clinton by 11 points, the largest margin yet recorded, and him up over McCain by 4, 47-43. Obama appears to be getting a "bounce" from Tuesday night.
Given the generic numbers for President and Congress (Dems up 10-15 points), I fully expect that once Obama secures the nomination, and Clinton ends her campaign, for him to get a significant bump and to be in front of McCain by at least high single digits. This new poll is the first evidence that we may be seeing this scenerio beginning to be playing out already. It will be interesting to see what other polls show in the coming days, and how the media coverage of Clinton's likely victory in WV affects this possible new dynamic.
Given her already weakened financial state, if a national swing like this is actually happening and shows up in other polls over the next few days, it is going to make it very hard for Senator Clinton to go on past next week.
We will see.
Sat 4pm Update - Gallup now also shows significant movement to Obama. Again still early to say this is a definitive across the board bounce, but these 2 major tracks have both now shown real movement to Obama these last few days.
Hey everyone, in case you're reading this we're in the midst of a great panel on "The Evolving Model Using New Tools" at our New Tools, New Audiences Forum. We'll be joined in a bit by Joe Trippi, who you can see in the video below from an earlier event of ours.
So feel free to swing by the Phoenix Park Hotel if you're in DC. You can find out more about the event by going to our website or by clicking the link in the Upcoming NDN Events block to the right.
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