Youth voters came out in record numbers and look to figure heavily in future elections.source
By Karlo Barrios Marcelo, November 11, 2008
The 2008 election cycle was marked by many firsts: It brought America's first African-American president elect as well as the longest and most expensive campaign on record. Then there was that other first — the exceptional youth voter turnout, a group that pundits and "mature voters" had consistently demoralized for their apparent apathy and ignorance. Earlier this year I argued that three was the magic number (as in increased youth turnout for three consecutive elections), and the pro-youth voter stories in recent days are a direct result of young people's actions this cycle.Youth and apathy are no longer bedfellows. 2008 was the third election cycle in a row, following 2006 and 2004, which witnessed an increase in voter participation from the previous election. That's impressive growth, which is more than we can say about the teenage unemployment rate. I'll come back to jobs a little later, not least because the economy was the number one issue on voters' minds on Election Day.
Compared to 2000, this year's youth turnout rate is at least 11 percentage points higher. The Millennial generation are citizens who vote and volunteering at higher rates than the 1990s. In addition to reporting on this generation's electoral presence, the media has run stories on the other ways that young people were active in the 2008 presidential election. And others are looking still further a field, and rightly so, to the activism we might expect post-election from young people. After the spike in the youth turnout rate in 1992, youth engagement was not fully realized, marked by declines in volunteering, voting, and positive views about government and politics.
Youth Step Up
A historic shift in the power structure of electoral politics going back several years drove this increased activism. Internet's democratic domain made a diverse amount of youth generated content available.
Additionally, groups like Forward Montana made public their roll of disputed registered voters, allowing all voters, though largely targeting young voters, to circumvent registration problems before Election Day. A group of students created GoVoteAbsentee.org, a one-stop for would-be absentee voters from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Rock the Vote and MTV created legions of on-the-ground reporters obsessed with following young voters, their issues, and what engages them in this election. On Election Day, field organizers and young voters from several states and campuses alerted young voter organizations to spurious emails and text messages that sought to confuse their recipients about their voting rights.
Young people multi-tasked on and offline in this election, establishing a constant presence on social networking sites as well as on the campaign trail. Among young people during the 2008 primary season, 54 percent generally followed news about public affairs, 7 percent had volunteered for a presidential campaign, 13 percent attended a political meeting, and 15 percent made a political donation, nearly half of did so online.
During the general election campaign in September, a Rock the Vote poll found that 92 percent had talked with friends or family about the election; 63 percent received their news from online sources. A CBS News-UWIRE-Chronicle of Higher Education Poll conducted in October found that 13 percent of college students in select battleground states had volunteered for a campaign, while 65 percent had visited a candidate's website.
While these percentages appear lower in comparison to other current polling, these statistics are a sign that young people increased their political activism over previous elections in ways other than voting. What all these polls have in common is the increase in young voters paying attention and getting involved in this year's election.
Engagaed For The Future
Young voters were engaged in this election, and historic campaign aside, the economy was the number one issue — specifically creating jobs and managing the rising costs of college tuition. The above polls mentioned that young voters wanted to hear the candidates talk about these issues. Barack Obama made the most direct appeal to young voters, offering to pay for college in exchange for community or military service. This proposal may be one of the reasons that 66 percent of young voters choose Obama for President, the largest vote share ever bestowed upon a presidential candidate by any age group since 1972.
Age and voting are positively correlated; in other words the older one gets, the more likely they are to vote. The Millennial generation has set a new standard, starting on a higher and sturdier plateau of electoral participation than previous generations. As this generation ages, as more voter-friendly voting laws are passed, and as more members of the Millennial generation demystify the mechanics of voting, the more we can expect the voice of this generation to carry through out the 21st century.
Raw exit poll data will soon become available and Census data on voting will be available in the spring of 2009, allowing youth vote researchers to slice and dice each demographic and attribute of young voter in the 2008 election. Until those data sets arrive, and we can tell a more robust story of engagement, preliminary analysis is consistent with other accolades about this election, not the least of which is its historic nature. More specifically, this election marks a sea change in political engagement among a new generation of Americans — the citizens and leaders of today, not just tomorrow.
Karlo Barrios Marcelo is a research associate at CIRCLE -- a non-partisan research center that studies civic and political engagement among 15- to 25-year-olds in America. He serves on the advisory board of HeadCount.
source
• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball
• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili
• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini
• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father
• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
• He has read every Harry Potter book
• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali
• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream
• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars
• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
• He can speak Spanish
• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead
• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea
• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn't
• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name
• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived
• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy
• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books
• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck
• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees
• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date
• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker
• He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician
• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)
• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal
• His house in Chicago has four fire places
• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita
• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry
• He uses an Apple Mac laptop
• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300
• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits
• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes
• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)
• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire
• He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers
• He was nicknamed "Bear" by his late grandmother
• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds
• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso
• His speciality as a cook is chilli
• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"
• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life
• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government
source:cnn.com
Barack Obama had a formidable online presence during his quest for the White House, and he is once again turning to the Internet to communicate with the American public as president-elect.
Within 24 hours of last week's historic vote, his transition team rolled out change.gov, a Web site that promises to be "your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration."
The site is still a little thin on content, but there's a blog, a newsroom and a countdown to the January 20 inauguration.
Visitors can fill out a form to share their stories about what the election meant to them, or they can give their vision of an Obama presidency. They can even apply for a job. Watch how the site may help Obama »
The Web site is an extension of Obama's online strategy during the campaign.
As a candidate, he had four times as many friends as his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, on MySpace.com. Obama had almost 3 million supporters on Facebook and put together a massive database of e-mail addresses -- some 10 million.
Obama even announced Sen. Joe Biden as his choice for vice president in a text message to supporters.
People who follow Obama online have become a community that the president-elect can tap into, said Andrew Raseij, founder of TechPresident.com, a Web site that tracked the online operations of the 2008 presidential campaigns.
"He now has his own special interest. He has a group of people he can go to and ask them to participate in helping him pass his legislative agenda," Raseij said.
He also predicted that Obama will use online video and interactivity to revolutionize the way the commander in chief communicates.
"I think the days of just a Saturday morning radio address and an occasional press conference as the way the president speaks to the American public are over," Raseij said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Barack Obama starts doing a weekly YouTube video and also fireside chats for the 21st century by allowing people to filter up questions to him that he might answer."
iReport.com: Take a guided tour of the Web site with a fellow reader
The president-elect already has said he'll have a five-day online comment period before signing any nonemergency legislation, so Americans can be part of the process.
He's also planning to appoint a chief technology officer and has pledged to get true broadband to every community in the country.
Obama's embrace of the Internet during his presidential campaign came as Americans increasingly turned to online sources to get election news. iReport.com: Message to Obama praises use of technology
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found 33 percent got most of their 2008 campaign news from the Internet, compared with 10 percent in 2004.
The same survey found almost half of Americans ages 18 to 29 turned to the Internet as their major source of election news in 2008. Seventeen percent of people in this age group turned to newspapers.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he's fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.
I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.
I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation's next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House. And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.
To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics - you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.
But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you.
I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.
It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory.
I know you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.
There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.
Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends... though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.
For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.
America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:
Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
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