Our friend Tony Cani has some interesting posts over at the YDA blog addressing the youth involvement issue that we discussed last week. I thought I would throw three of the posts up for your consumption.

More Youth Vote Media Attention
by Tony Cani, Political Director on Thu Jul 5, 11:33 AM
Time has a new piece about the youth vote movement and the early efforts of Presidential candidates to reach out to an engaged generation of young Americans.
The fact that the Millenial generation (which is a huge block of voters) is bucking the "apathetic" trend of their older brothers and sisters is quickly becoming conventional wisdom.
After more than a decade of declining or stagnating numbers, turnout among voters under age 30 increased by almost 5 million in 2004 and almost 2 million in 2006. Voting experts say this is because a new generation has come of age — the Millienials — and they are more civically engaged young adults than so-called GenXers were during the 1990s. The Millenial Generation — those born between 1979 and 1994 — is also three times the size of Generation X. They've voted Democratic in the last two elections and according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll released in late June, they plan to again in 2008. That poll found that 54% of voters under age 30 say they intend to vote Democratic. But 40% of young adults ages 18 to 24 describe themselves as Independents, according to an April poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics. Because of that, Smith says Republicans could still win the youth vote in 2008.
I have said it on this blog and at meetings before and I will say it again: Young people are paying attention but that doesn't mean the battle is won. The added attention and focus on our early successes only increas the stakes. We need to keep pushing, keep innovating, and do everythign we can to translate the interest and support of young Americans into a long term Democratic voting bloc.
The good news is, for the first time in a long time, we aren't the only Democrats really trying to do this. Luckily, Democratic presidential candidates are blowing Republicans away not only in youth support, but in efforts to reach out to young people as actual voters - not just an internet loving volunteer force (think there is a connection?):
So far, however, Democratic presidential frontrunners have been better at reaching out to young people. The Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns have all hired youth vote coordinators to focus on organization among students and young professionals. Obama hired Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to oversee the campaign's social networking sites, while Hillary Clinton is using YouTube to reach its young audience — most recently by allowing them to select her campaign song, Celine Dion's "You and I." John Edwards continues to run his One Corps, a community service organization comprised mainly of young adults.
Our own Alexandra Acker gets a mention in the article as she compares this cycle's efforts to those of the past:
Such youth outreach this early on in an election season is unprecedented by Democrats, says Alexandra Acker, executive director of Young Democrats of America. Acker served as the youth outreach coordinator for John Kerry in 2004, but she wasn't brought on staff until after the primaries. "The biggest difference this election cycle is that all of the Democratic candidates now have a personal commitment to young voters, she says. "We're leaps and bounds ahead of where we were in 2004, and that was leaps and bounds ahead of 2000."
Personally, my favorite part of the article comes from the "we don't get it" teams at the Guiliani, McCain, and Romney campaigns:
On the Republican side, neither McCain nor Giuliani have hired youth vote coordinators, though Giuiliani does employ the same Republican pollster that Smith's team has used. A spokesman for McCain emphasized the campaign's presence on Facebook and MySpace. Mitt Romney's campaign has not met with Smith, says a campaign spokesman, because he already learned how to do successful youth vote outreach as Massachusetts . Recently Romney announced a "Students for Mitt" program in which college students receive a 10% commission for every $1,000 they raise for the campaign.
Oh those Republicans ... too busy firing staff and flip flopping on commutation to realize how important our generation is.

New Poll: Young Americans Support Democrats, Are Paying Attention to Politics
by Tony Cani, Political Director on Thu Jun 28, 11:00 AM
Some great stuff from a new NY Times / CBS news / MTV Poll.
Guess what? Young Americans support the Democratic Party.
More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.
[...]
By a 52 to 36 majority, young Americans say that Democrats, rather than Republicans, come closer to sharing their moral values, while 58 percent said they had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and 38 percent said they had a favorable view of Republicans.
Guess what? Young Americans are engaged in Politics.
By any measure, the poll suggests that young Americans are anything but apathetic about the presidential election. Fifty-eight percent said they were paying attention to the campaign. By contrast, at this point in the 2004 presidential campaign, 35 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said they were paying a lot or some attention to the campaign.
The mainstream media seems to be catching up to what we have known for a long time - young people are not only an essential voting bloc for the Democratic Party ... but a potentially powerful one.

Told You So! Young Voter Increases Confirmed by Census Data
by Tony Cani, Political Director on Sat Jun 16, 01:05 AM
Sometimes the hardest people to convince that young Americans are increasingly participating in our Democracy isn't them old folks ... but instead it is other young Americans.
Well, if you are still a cynic take a gander at this new info from a CIRCLE fact sheet on the 2006 election:
"This fact sheet uses new data from the 2006 Current Population Survey, November Supplement, to determine the youth voter turnout in the 2006 midterm election. The data confirm early estimates by CIRCLE that 10.8 million young Americans voted in the 2006 midterm elections. The voter turnout rate was 25.5 percent in 2006, up 3 percentage points from the last midterm election in 2002."

This obviously is great news for not only our Party, but for the state of our Democracy as whole.
Take a minute to congratulate yourself for your part in this increase - but don't rest on your laurels. To keep this trend of increased participation and support for Democrats alive, we are going to have to work even harder in the 2007 elections and during 2008 than we ever have.
That being said ... great job to everyone focusing on young voters!