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Early date changes youth-voting efforts

By LISA ROSSI • REGISTER AMES BUREAU • November 15, 2007

Ames, Ia. - Efforts to inspire, encourage and cajole young Iowa voters to attend the 2008 presidential caucuses have lost some - but not all - of their steam with the news that Iowa's marquee event will occur when most college students are away on winter break.

Young voter participation, on a long national decline since the Vietnam War era, had begun to perk up in 2004 and 2006. Advocates of youth voting had hopes of fanning the flame in a year with an open presidential race drawing large fields of candidates

- Students have started to push campuses to keep dormitories open for the Jan. 3 caucuses, a suggestion some campus officials embrace and others reject as too costly and unsafe.

- Some students involved in voter mobilization efforts have shifted their focus to recruiting students who grew up in Iowa. That takes attention away from out-of-state students, who in past years would caucus as Iowa residents living on campus while school was in session. This year, they would have to travel long distances to caucus at their Iowa campus locations.

- Students and professors who push for the youth vote are at odds over whether 2007 and 2008 mobilization strategies should include pitches on the Web and on cell phones or whether groups should spend more time gathering promises to caucus or support a particular candidate face-to-face.

About 5,000 18- to 24-year-olds participated in the Democratic caucus of 2004 - about 3.9 percent of the 124,000 total caucusgoers that year, according to the Iowa Democratic Party.

Republican Party of Iowa officials said they have no numbers of college-age participation in 2000, the most recent year Iowa's GOP presidential caucuses were held.

Candidates would be more likely to hear and consider the concerns of young Iowans if they turned out in greater numbers at the caucuses, advocates say.

Young people in the 2006 midterm elections were more likely to disapprove of the war in Iraq than older voters, and more likely to be dissatisfied with the Bush administration, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

The New Voters Project Iowa caucus mobilization effort, called "Rock the Caucus," aims to recruit 5,000 young people to attend the caucuses. It will do that by enlisting 250 students deemed "rock stars" to persuade 20 of their friends to caucus, said Sujatha Jahagirdar, program director of the student Public Interest Research Group New Voters Project.

Rock the Caucus also involves the Iowa secretary of state and Rock the Vote, a young voter mobilization effort founded in the 1990s by recording artists concerned about freedom of speech.

Stacey Wilson, 19, is one of the caucus "rock stars" in charge or recruiting her classmates at Drake University to promise to show up on caucus night.

She acknowledged that her new "rock star" status has come with disappointments.

Some people tell Wilson, a sophomore, they don't want to participate, because they would simply support anyone other than the current president.

"It scares me - they think it doesn't matter," she said. "It's a lazy thing that students are doing. ... I know our generation is the first in history that is most likely not to do better than their parents. It surprises me people are not more concerned."

Wilson, from Appleton, Wis., has also backed off of recruiting out-of-state students from Drake to caucus, because most of them will be gone over winter break. A Drake adviser has told Wilson it would be really expensive to open campus during the caucuses, she said.

"I've not heard anything back," she said.

Drake officials said this week they have recently decided to study how they would accommodate the housing needs of students who want to come back and caucus when campus is closed.

Officials at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa said they would make space available for dorm-dwellers who want to come back, stay the night and caucus. Grinnell College also has plans to open a campus building, equipped with showers, for the 24-hour time period surrounding the caucuses, where students can camp out in sleeping bags.

University of Iowa staff said they will not open any campus housing for caucusgoers, because it would be difficult to provide staff for a building with so few people.

"We wouldn't open the building and man that for one person," said Carrie Kiser-Wacker, U of I assistant to the director of university housing.

She added, "If we had empty space like Iowa State and UNI, and could consolidate them in one building, that would be terrific, but we just don't have that."

Some campus party activists are also pulling back from recruiting their peers to caucus this year.

Amanda Halfacre, an ISU senior from Dallas, Texas who is president of ISU Democrats, said group members have in past years spent the day of the caucus calling students urging them to show up. That won't happen this year, because the students won't know where to reach other students.

She said the group will send out a mass e-mail letting students know they can register the day of the caucus.

Some student activists are trying to overcome the disappointment of the new caucus date by pointing to the new power of the Web. Since 2004, Facebook has infiltrated Iowa campuses, and Internet fundraising and campaigning have advanced beyond a novelty for campaigns. The social networking site and others like it have also moved into the mainstream.

Don McDowell, an ISU senior from Sheldon, said building up student interest on social networking Web sites like Facebook will be more effective in 2007 and 2008 than the past practice of handing out literature in central campus locations.

"I think they have their iPod in their ears, their cell phone to their ear," said McDowell, also co-chairman of Iowa Federation of College Republicans. "They are off thinking of their next class, the test they failed, or why their girlfriends just dumped them."

He said students interested in persuading their peers to vote could instead choose creative pitches on the Web, such as filming a video reminding them to vote and blasting it all over the Internet.

He also said it's not uncommon for students to check Facebook 10 times a day, a reality that could be used on Jan. 3, when potential voters could be barraged with messages about the caucuses.

Other organizers still tout the value of old-fashioned, face-to-face networking.

Jimmy Centers is the student chairman for Students for Rudy Giuliani at the University of Iowa, which has 200 members. He said the group hands out tiny pieces of paper campaign literature in an effort to enlist enough students to make the chapter the largest for Giuliani in the country.

He said the tactic caters to the "fast-paced" college atmosphere, where students are on the go.

That is in addition to messages the student Giuliani chapter sends out to its Facebook group, which he says also has several hundred members.

Tim Hagle, a U of I associate political science professor and adviser to the Iowa Federation of College Republicans, said he is trying to persuade student groups supporting a particular candidate to be more visible on campus.

Hagle recalled the 2000 caucuses, when he was the faculty adviser for the U of I student group supporting George W. Bush. He said clusters of students involved in the campaign gathered in a central part of campus.

He would watch the group grow, as students would pull in friends from their dorm and other parts of their lives.

The Bush student supporters even made friends with rivals: "We got along great with the (Bill) Bradley people," Hagle said.

"They know each other, so they can stand out and talk, kid us back and forth," he said. "It's that face-to-face communication that really gets the message out. I'm trying to get them out there a little bit more."

Those were the days when cell phones weren't as prevalent, and for students to participate in a phone bank, they had to travel to Des Moines or Cedar Rapids, he said.

Now campaigns have cell phone banks in Iowa City, staffed in part with students with flexible schedules, he said.

"They are concerned with, 'Make the calls. Make the calls,' " Hagle said. "One of the problems on phone calling is it's very difficult to reach students. ... Unless you get out there and meet people face-to-face on the Pentacrest and classrooms, it's very difficult to reach out to those voters."

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071115/NEWS09/711150391/-1/SPORTS12

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/11/04/news/local/f66bea3e9178372586257388007dee1b.txt

Campaigns work hard to attract young voters
By Ed Tibbetts Quad-City Times

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Gideon Yago laid it on the line for Coe College students at a presidential forum here last week.

"One of the great things about being in a place like Iowa," the 27-year-old MTV news correspondent said, "is that a lot of you guys are going to actually get a chance to participate in this process and see it first hand."

But, really, will they?

Every presidential cycle, there's a push to get young voters to turn out. Usually, they don't.

Example: In 2004, just 3.9 percent of the 124,000 Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa were between 18 and 24.

By comparison, turnout by people 55 to 65 was nearly four times higher.

Still, one of the most talked about demographic targets in this year's caucuses are young people, especially by the Democrats.

Campaigns are setting up offices on college campuses, applying interactive technology to reach the young and devoting at least some of their staff and volunteers to roping them in.

The reason is simple: Iowa is expected to be close. And with the winner possibly being the candidate with 35,000 to 40,000 votes, adding a couple thousand people to your column could provide a valuable margin.

And although young people may not have voted in the past, that also means there's a large pool of potential new support.

Thus, the effort to pierce their legendary apathy.

Candidates target young voters

In many cases, that means appealing to their idealism, like Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., did on the Coe College campus in Cedar Rapids.

"It was young people who decided that slavery was wrong. It was young people who decided segregation was wrong. It was young people who made sure that women had the right to vote," Obama said. "It will be young people who help bring an end to the Iraq war. It is you who will ultimately make the difference."

So far, Obama has gotten the most attention for trying to lure young voters. He's even taken the unusual step of devoting a full-time staffer to organizing in more than 140 high schools.

But the other Democratic campaigns are busy, too.

John Edwards has set up an outreach plan using text messaging and other technology to connect with young voters, while his daughter Cate and "Desperate Housewives" star James Denton made a tour of college campuses in September.

Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign is courting young people, too, with outreach and visits by famous supporters. Soap star Victoria Rowell was part of a Rock the Vote event in the Quad-Cities.

On Thursday, Clinton's campaign also announced a "Students for Hillary" campaign and touted a new nationwide poll showing her leading Obama by 30 points among people between 18 and 30.

Young voters can let you down

Since 2004, when Howard Dean's base of young voters failed to boost him to victory in the state's caucuses, it's become conventional wisdom that it's not smart to rely on the youth vote.

Even Obama's campaign is quick to point out it's not banking too heavily on the demographic.

"We're excited that Sen. Obama's candidacy is bringing in new people," said Tommy Vietor, an Iowa spokesman. "But we continue to focus much of our efforts on reaching out to traditional caucus-goers."

Entrance polls conducted before the 2004 caucus did show a sharp increase in turnout by people between 18 and 29, but the figures don't match with the statistics the Iowa Democratic Party has released about actual 2004 turnout.

Despite that, there is reason to believe young people are more interested in elections than in the past.

In Iowa's two most recent federal elections, youth turnout was up.

In 2004, 62 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, up from 47 percent four years earlier.

In fact, state figures show that a third of the new voters in Iowa in 2004 were people 18 to 24.

Last year, turnout in that same age group jumped from 23 percent to 27 percent.

"It is not wise to ignore the youth vote," said Sujatha Jahagirdar, the program director for a new voters project launched last month by the Iowa Public Research Interest Group.

The group hopes to get 5,000 people 18 to 29 to commit to caucusing.

Caucus date may keep students away

A caucus is much different from a standard election, however, and just because more people are willing to go into a voting booth doesn't mean they'll go to a caucus.

More time is required at a caucus and, in the Democratic Party, it means casting a vote in the open, in front of others.

This year's caucus date has complicated matters, too.

With the caucuses set for Jan. 3, colleges will be on winter break.

For people like Meghan Keder, a 20-year-old Coe student from Scottsbluff, Neb., that's a deal breaker.

"I live 12 hours away, so I can't really come back for one day just to caucus," said Keder, a member of the college Democrats.

As a result of the new date, Iowa's in-state college population will be scattered across the state on the Jan. 3, making it less likely that peer pressure will get them to the caucuses. That will put more pressure on the campaigns to go out and get them.

For people like Erica Smothers, a 19-year-old studying biology, it may matter less what kind of outreach there is than the lasting influence of a candidate's touch.

After listening to Obama speak to a crowd under a canopy of trees on a warm fall day here, Smothers confessed that "to be honest, I don't know a lot about all of the candidates."

But she still said she's 80 percent sure she'll go to the caucus, anyway.

"I just think it's a great thing having Barack here," she said. "He just has a really great way of speaking to young people."

"One of the very things that he says students should be doing today -- asking all of the Presidential candidates what their plans are on key issues such as global warming -- is going on right now," says Ellynne Bannon, Student  PIRGs'  New Voters Project director.  It's "part of a huge national effort: The Student PIRGs' New Voters Project What's Your Plan? campaign."

She further explains:

To date more than 200 student volunteers have engaged in 65 face to face conversations with the Presidential candidates at photo-ops, fundraisers, and town hall meetings across the country to ask them what their plans are on key youth issues such as global warming college affordability, financial security and health care. 

We've met with all of the major Presidential candidates multiple times to ask about their plans and we'll continue to ask these important questions all the way through Election Day 2008.

While the new social networking present new ways for students to communicate and to add to more "traditional" organizing, I think that there is plenty of evidence that young people [are] not apathetic or content to sit back, but instead are at the forefront of some very exciting social change.

* Since 2003, student volunteers, youth and interns working with the Student PIRGs' New Voters Project have registered more than 600,000 18-30 year olds to vote and made 650,000 personalized voter turnout contacts to turn young people out to the polls.

... Surveys show that youth turnout (18-29 year olds) in 2004 rose 9 points over 2000 turnout.

* Students across the country were critical in helping to pass federal legislation that will cut student loan interest rates in half--which will save the typical student borrower $2,300- and boost college scholarships for millions of students. 

More than 20,000 students participated in this grassroots effort.

* Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a $3.2 billion solar program that will create a million new solar homes and businesses over the next ten years and make California the world leader in solar power.

CALPIRG students played a vital role in generating thousands of comments, signing on approximately 60 faculty experts to a letter, generating media through educational events and convincing key legislators through direct advocacy.  

Perhaps, as the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg  noted earlier this year, the face of activism has changed so much that it's just not recognizable anymore.

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