Young voters are the talk of the electorate this year, yet our participation is often misunderstood. Rising youth turnout is not solely the result of Senator Obama's good looks and message of hope and change. It is the result of years of work by over a dozen youth organizations (beyond Rock the Vote and other celebrity vehicles) working in the field to engage young voters, establish best practices, and teach the media the true story about the youth vote.
It is for the most part thankless, but important, work that is underfunded and often overlooked.
Today I'm writing to ask your help in supporting an organization that has worked tirelessly on behalf of young, democratic voters - The Young Voter PAC.
The Young Voter PAC works to make sure that politicians pay attention to the youth vote and that young voters have a voice in the process (disclosure: I'm on the Board of YVP). In non-PR-speak, that means that they teach candidates and campaigns the best practices for reaching out to young voters, work with state parties on young voter outreach, and reward candidates who demonstrate a commitment to young voters. In the past, they have supported Scott Kleeb, Jon Tester, Patrick Murphy, Darcy Burner, Lois Murphy, Harry Mitchell, Patricia Madrid and many others.
In addition to these activities, YVP has provided scholarships to Iowa students to help cover travel costs for their participation in the caucuses, they pushed back hard against the Clinton campaign for suggesting that Iowas students be disenfranchised, they've helped bring big-name candidates like Darcy Burner and Scott Kleeb to my own blog, Future Majority, for live-blogging sessions with young voters, and they're working on organizing young voter events at Netroots Nation and the Democratic Convention.
I'm not looking to raise a dollar amount. This isn't about reaching a specific goal in terms of money. I'm just looking to get some of the netroots behind their work. As such, I've set a rather modest goal of 50 supporters between now and the election. If we meet and surpass that goal, we'll bump it up higher and see how well we can do.
In part, this is about building a netroots infrastructure focused on increasing the participation and influence of young people in the Democratic Party. Viewed through that lens, Young Voter PAC is a vehicle very similar to Blog PAC or Blue America PAC. Whereas those PACs have Open Left, Daily Kos and Swing State Project backing them, the equivalent for the Young Voter PAC is Future Majority. I posted yesterday about the newly re-launched Future Majority blog, what it does, and why it matters. I hope you'll stop by to participate, and would appreciate any feedback in the comments.
We want politicians to pay attention to young people, and we want young people to have a voice in campaigns. Young Voter PAC is one way to change the faces of elections: who participates and who wins. Thanks in advance for supporting the role of young voters in the netroots and the Democratic Party.