reaching younger voters (x-posted)

[tabbycat31]

Hello everyone, I was at a meeting for my county Democratic Party, and we were creamed up and down the ticket in November. One of the disappointments from one election to the next was the under 30 voters (I am in this group for 2 months).

I want to know if any DUers are locally involved with their party, and if they are does their (local) party reach out to younger voters? If your party does actively try--- are you successful?

What works and does not work?

And if you are under 30, what could your local party do to get you more involved? Thanks

[bendonahower]

1. Young voters

First off, I assume you are talking about under 30 turnout numbers and not performance...

I hate to be a nay sayer on this but young people are tough. You will get some of them in a presidential but otherwise, what is the opportunity to cost of focusing on 20 somethings than making sure something in the their 40s that you know sometimes votes actually makes it to the polls on election day? i think it's going to take a lot less resources to do the latter.

I'm under 30 by 4 years and have been involved in politics since 17. As such, I was always the person tapped to help organize the college dems or the young dems always to no avail. The young dems in my county in Pa have disbanded and reconstituted themselves 5 times in the last 10 years.

There are exceptions but these are few and far between.

I'm not going to blame it on the under 30 crowd or on activists. Young people are living with their parents well into their 20s, the jobs market is forcing people to be relatively transient in their 20s, people are getting married, settling down much later life. So while young people are aware of national issues and will thus vote to make their voices heard there isn't much connection to the town they happen to be living in at the moment to really get involved in the process.

Ben Donahower
www.facebook.com/keystonecampaigns