Rock the Vote's Youth Vote Review

Rock the Vote has a new PDF that reviews the young voter myths and facts.

Check it out.

Here is a sample from their press release:

Myth - Every election year, reporters and organizations hype the youth vote as the next big thing, but come Election Day, young voters fail to materialize at the polls.

Fact - It’s true that there was a lot of talk about young voters in both 2004 and 2006 – but for very good reason. After a nearly continuous downward turnout trend since 1972, turnout among 18-29 year olds was up significantly in 2004 and 2006.

In 2004, 20.1 million 18-29 year olds voted, a 4.3 million jump over 2000. The turnout increase (9% points) among the youngest voters was more than double that of the overall electorate (4% points). (U.S. Census Bureau)
In 2006, the youth increased by 1.9 million over 2002 levels. Turnout among the youngest voters grew by 3% points over 2002, twice the turnout increase (1.7% points) of older voters. (U.S. Census Bureau)

In fact, in 2004 the turnout rate of 18-29 year olds was higher than all but one year (1992) since 18-20 year olds got voting rights in 1972.

Post Caucus Wrap Up

Wow, I don't even know where to go from here... Obama won the Iowa Caucus, and Edwards came in second, and Clinton came in 3rd. I didn't think that Iowa would go that way, although it broke down pretty much like the last poll said it should.

From Wiretap's article on the primary:

The Iowa youth turnout rate has almost tripled since 2000. Participation of youth under 30 rose from 3 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2008. The turnout rate for those 30 and above was 15 percent. Among 17- to 29-year-old Democrats, 57 percent supported the winner, Barack Obama, and among 17- to 29-year-old Republicans, 40 percent supported the winner, Mike Huckabee, according to CNN's entrance poll.

Wiretap also notes that Obama's Campaign gives the youth vote credit for his win.

YDA's Executive Director Al Acker said in the YDA Press Release:

“The Young Voter Revolution continued in Iowa tonight, with young voters again showing they will turn out when targeted,” said Alexandra Acker, Executive Director of the Young Democrats of America. “Young voters were the margin of victory for Barack Obama tonight and they will by the margin of victory to propel our Democratic nominee to victory in November.

Michael Moore's comments point out that support for the war was rejected.

Over 70% of Iowan Democrats voted for candidates who either never voted for the invasion of Iraq (Obama, Richardson, Kucinich) or who have since admitted their mistake (Edwards, Biden, Dodd). I can't tell you how bad I feel for Senator Clinton tonight. I don't believe she was ever really for this war. But she did -- and continued to do -- what she thought was the politically expedient thing to eventually get elected. And she was wrong. And tonight she must go to sleep wondering what would have happened if she had voted her conscience instead of her calculator.

Future Majority Reporting that the youth vote was over three times what it was over the last few cycles.

Young voters are increasingly moving in the direction of Democrats, and tonight, the Obama campaign - thanks to a savvy youth operation that reached out on Facebook and MySpace, at high schools and on college campuses - was able to capitalize on that to attain victory. His win confirms what many have been saying for years now: young people will vote if you pay attention to the, speak to their issues, and reach out. New technologies can certainly help make that initial connection, yet it's still good old fashioned face to face politicking - peer to peer organizing - that makes the difference. Years ago, when young people began voting Republican during the Reagan Era, Democrats stopped asking young voters to participate. Tonight's victory shows what individual candidates, and the Democratic Party stand to gain by courting today's young voters.

And each campaign has released comments. I can't wait to see how things go in NH.

A Dynasty Isn’t a Democracy

A Dynasty Isn’t a Democracy
Another Bhutto for Pakistan doesn’t bode well for democracy; would another Clinton for the U.S.?
by Rosa Brooks

As the U.S. election season shifts creakily into higher gear, our leaders are enthusiastically lionizing slain Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. The former prime minister “returned to Pakistan to fight for democracy,” noted Hillary Clinton. “The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a tragic event … for democracy,” mourned Rudy Giuliani. Meanwhile, President Bush urged Pakistanis “to honor Benazir Bhutto’s memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.”

Hold on! Bhutto was a courageous and compelling figure, but hardly a martyr to democracy. The daughter of a prime minister, Bhutto took over the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party from her mother, who herself inherited party leadership from Bhutto’s father. Bhutto’s own two terms as Pakistan’s prime minister were marred by corruption scandals and allegations of involvement in still darker activities, including the 1996 murder of her own brother, a party rival.

Her policies didn’t always further democracy either. Bhutto actively supported the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan, for instance. She was willing to help empower the most extremist and repressive Islamic organization the world has so far seen in exchange for the imagined strategic advantage an entrenched Taliban government in Afghanistan would give Pakistan in its unending power struggle with India.

After disgrace and exile, Bhutto returned to Pakistan in the fall of 2007 on a self-styled mission to rescue Pakistan from chaos, and she loudly demanded the restoration of democracy. Pakistan could use some genuine democracy — but Bhutto, an eternally polarizing figure, was hardly the woman to usher in a new era of democratic stability, regardless of the Bush administration’s hopes.

Bhutto’s tragic death itself underlines the limits of her commitment to democracy. In her will, she named her 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, as her successor as chair of the Pakistan People’s Party, appointing her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as co-chair and quasi-regent until Bilawal comes of age. To Bhutto, political power was something one could inherit, something to be passed along from spouse to spouse and from parent to child, like grandmother’s pearls or grandfather’s favorite chair — or like the infamous Swiss bank accounts that led to corruption charges against her in several countries.

And who knows? Maybe Bilawal’s not such a bad choice for the Pakistan People’s Party. A history student at Oxford, he already has a constituency — at least on Facebook, where someone has established a new fan group called “Let’s not assassinate Bilawal Bhutto because he’s hot, OK?” Bilawal’s own Facebook profile is fairly modest: “I am not a politician or a great thinker. I’m merely a student. I do the things that students do like make mistakes, eat junk food … but most importantly of all … learn.” Still, “My time to lead will come.”

What’s weirdest about all this is that not very many people here in the U.S. seem to have noticed that this is all pretty weird. A champion of democracy passes along political leadership in her will, leaving it to her husband and son? That’s dynastic politics, not democratic politics.

Kings and queens pass along their political positions to their children. Paragons of democracy do not. But you won’t find even a hint of this in the reactions of the leading presidential contenders from either party, or from the White House, or from most leading U.S. media commentators.

There is, of course, an obvious and depressing explanation for why so few people in the U.S. seem to have registered this as jarring: We’re perilously close to becoming a dynastic state ourselves. Our current president, George W. Bush, is the son of our former president, George H.W. Bush. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is struggling today to hold on to her position as Democratic Party front-runner, is married to former President Clinton.

You can’t blame the heirs of political dynasties for their fortunes. Nineteen-year-old Bilawal is a pawn in a deadly game; so far, he hasn’t had much control over his life. Benazir Bhutto didn’t have much either: In September, she wrote, rather poignantly, “I didn’t choose this life. It chose me.” Similarly, George W. Bush didn’t choose his father, and it’s not Hillary Clinton’s fault that the young law professor she married later became president.

All the same, there’s something awfully creepy about the dynastic trend in American politics. If Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2008, by 2012 the U.S. presidency will have been controlled for 24 years by only two families. More families have divvied up the political spoils in Pakistan in the last 24 years.

The U.S. isn’t Pakistan, thank goodness. But as voters in Iowa’s caucuses kick off the 2008 presidential season, we’d do well to think about what makes the U.S. and Pakistan different — and about what values we Americans need to nurture if we’re going to remain a true democracy and not sink into our own brand of corrupt dynastic politics.

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com

Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times

Center for American Progress Thoughts on Pakistan

Link

The article is good and full of links and documentation, but here is the conclusion:

A PAKISTAN POLICY NEEDED: In 1999, Bush could not name Pervez Musharraf as the leader of Pakistan, but still managed to claim that Musharraf was "committed to reinstating democratically elected government." In eight years, Bush has learned Musharraf's name but hasn't progressed much beyond his original talking point. Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Brian Katulis -- who recently returned from a visit to Pakistan -- writes the Bush administration has unwisely hitched its "plans to singular personalities rather than developing the institutions to advance U.S. interests." "We need a Pakistani policy, a consistent policy toward the government and the people of Pakistan, not a policy that holds all our hopes on one man, Musharraf," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE). Katulis writes that the first step in recalibrating U.S. policy is to begin "building a system based on rule of law and democracy that is capable of bringing terrorists to justice and ensuring that the judiciary is independent." Biden has argued that America should increase its non-military financial aid to Pakistan, taking an approach centered on the well-being of the Pakistani people. "Instead of funding military hardware, it would build schools, clinics, and roads," he said

2008 is gonna be great!

Two Days till the Caucuses in Iowa! So Thursday is going to be the first opinion poll that really matters!

Other than that... Happy New Year everybody! Enjoy the video on low expectations in the new year, and realize that this isn't the year for low expectations. We are going to work hard, and we are going to make the world a better place!