I was on Hannity & Colmes tonight on Fox News (I know, I know — I'm sure many of you think I got what was coming to me by going on Fox).  I knew I'd be talking about Hillary Clinton getting heckled at the College Democrats of America convention and the media frenzy around the minor foreign policy disagreements between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama.

I was happy to go on and defend our Democratic nominees for debating important issues while Republicans run to the right and pander to the base.

What I didn't know (because I didn't have a monitor in front of me while I was on live) was that the caption on the screen for the entire segment read HILLARY GETS RUDE WELCOME FROM YOUNG DEMOCRATS FOR AMERICA.

Let's start with the obvious errors.  First, we're the Young Democrats OF America, not For (although we're for America, as well).  Second, Hillary was speaking at the COLLEGE Democrats of America convention, not the Young Democrats.

But, most importantly, the clip they showed was misleading and that caption was misleading, too.  I know what happened.  I was there. Hillary was cheered by the College Democrats.  The boos you hear are the College Dems booing the lone, middle-aged heckler with a handmade sign.  The College Democrats did not boo Hillary Clinton!  They booed the heckler and then chanted Hil-lar-y!  Hil-lar-y! and cheered as some students escorted the woman out of the room.  Senator Clinton was calm and collected throughout, made a joke about it, and then went back to her speech where she outlined policy initiatives important to young people, like universal health care and a new academy for those who want to dedicate their lives to public service.

At the top of the segment, I said it was a lone heckler who was not a participant in the convention but that caption stayed up even as we discussed the war in Iraq and other topics.  Anyone who bothered to watch the entire clip of Hillary's speech to CDA would see what really happened.  Watch for yourself.

So, in the immortal words of Stephen Colbert: Fox News, you're on notice.

Watch the Hannity & Colmes segment here.  Read the transcript here.

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Senator John Edwards came to Dallas, TX to address the delegates of the 2007 YDA National Convention.

The speech was great and the Senator was very well received.

Enjoy!

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 of 3

Other convention video is being uploaded as I write this to our YouTube channel. Go to www.youtube.com/youngdems to see more!

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It's been a big few days for young voters in the media.

First, Democracy Corps released a new poll on Friday that shows support for Republicans among young people has collapsed.  The poll analysis goes so far as to say this dramatic lack of support will outlast the Bush Administration, helping to create a generation of anti-Republican voters.  You can read the poll and analysis here.

Then on Sunday, ABC's This Week discussed the youth vote.  Cokie Roberts has a thing or two to learn (she said young people don't vote!) but George Stephanopoulos corrected her.  You can read the transcript or download the podcast here. 

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John Edwards rocked.  He totally "gets" the youth vote thing and hit all the right notes.  And wow, did our delegates respond.  General session speakers Chuck Rocka from the United Steelworkers and Jon Soltz from VoteVets also brought down the house.  Tonight's general session, including nominations for our national officers, was a tremendous success.

Another tremendous success was our community service project with Democrats Work and Operation Homefront.  Delegates assembled backpacks for the families of servicemen and women.  The room was packed and the energy in the air was so moving.  We heard from General Wesley Clark about the importance of service and the need to bring our troops home from the war in Iraq.  Jon Soltz and WWE Superstar Chris Nowinski also spoke and honored our troops.  Thank you to the organizers of the event and a big thank you to the families of our troops who sacrifice so much for all of us.

Trainings concluded today and, again, were very well attended (props to delegates).  We also held caucus elections and regional meetings.

Tomorrow we will hear from some more exciting speakers, debate our national platform, and elect our new national officers!

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Our first general session ended just minutes ago.  Delegates are off for our Night Out in Dallas, enjoying local restaurants and soaking up some local flava.

Trainings, internal meetings, and caucuses continued.  In our trainings, we organized delegates for live action to call their Senators to help defeat a bad amendment to the College Cost Reducation Act (we won!).

At general session, we heard from Jim Hightower, former Texas Agricultural Commissioner, who kicked off the night with a kick-ass and take names speech filled with Texas humor.  State Representative Garnet Coleman, Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and James Bernard, Campaign Coordinator for SEIU, also spoke to delegates about the young voter revolution!

And Allison Gallaway, wife of outgoing President Chris Gallaway, gave a touching speech about Chris' leadership of YDA.

Schedule note for tomorrrow:  Senator John Edwards is now speaking at the 7:00pm general session tomorrow night.  And General Clark will be speaking at the 12:00pm community service project.

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Day 1 ended with a roaring welcome reception, headlined by a local salsa band. Convention co-chair Juan Ayala and I boogied down and promoted national-local relations. 

Our first training sessions were well-attended and the guerilla organizing session earned extra points for going out and organizing convention attendees to call their Senator about the important college affordability vote tomorrow (more about that from Tony).

About half of the delegates have arrived so far.  We're looking forward to another exciting day tomorrow.  General session kicks off at 5:00pm!

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I know it is late, but I wanted to check in to let you know that our entire staff is in Dallas right now working on final preparations for this week's National Convention!

To learn more about the convention, visit www.ydadallas2007.org.

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The YDA convention is just around the corner — less than two weeks from today — in Dallas.  If you haven't done so already, go to www.ydadallas2007.org to register for convention and find out important info about reserving hotel rooms, booking flights, and our exciting convention programs, trainings, and events!

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Time has a new piece about the youth vote movement and the early efforts of Presidential candidates to reach out to an engaged generation of young Americans.

The fact that the Millenial generation (which is a huge block of voters) is bucking the "apathetic" trend of their older brothers and sisters is quickly becoming conventional wisdom.

After more than a decade of declining or stagnating numbers, turnout among voters under age 30 increased by almost 5 million in 2004 and almost 2 million in 2006. Voting experts say this is because a new generation has come of age — the Millienials — and they are more civically engaged young adults than so-called GenXers were during the 1990s. The Millenial Generation — those born between 1979 and 1994 — is also three times the size of Generation X. They've voted Democratic in the last two elections and according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll released in late June, they plan to again in 2008. That poll found that 54% of voters under age 30 say they intend to vote Democratic. But 40% of young adults ages 18 to 24 describe themselves as Independents, according to an April poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics. Because of that, Smith says Republicans could still win the youth vote in 2008.

I have said it on this blog and at meetings before and I will say it again: Young people are paying attention but that doesn't mean the battle is won. The added attention and focus on our early successes only increas the stakes.  We need to keep pushing, keep innovating, and do everythign we can to translate the interest and support of young Americans into a long term Democratic voting bloc.

The good news is, for the first time in a long time, we aren't the only Democrats really trying to do this.  Luckily, Democratic presidential candidates are blowing Republicans away not only in youth support, but in efforts to reach out to young people as actual voters - not just an internet loving volunteer force (think there is a connection?):

So far, however, Democratic presidential frontrunners have been better at reaching out to young people. The Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns have all hired youth vote coordinators to focus on organization among students and young professionals. Obama hired Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to oversee the campaign's social networking sites, while Hillary Clinton is using YouTube to reach its young audience — most recently by allowing them to select her campaign song, Celine Dion's "You and I." John Edwards continues to run his One Corps, a community service organization comprised mainly of young adults.

Our own Alexandra Acker gets a mention in the article as she compares this cycle's efforts to those of the past:

Such youth outreach this early on in an election season is unprecedented by Democrats, says Alexandra Acker, executive director of Young Democrats of America. Acker served as the youth outreach coordinator for John Kerry in 2004, but she wasn't brought on staff until after the primaries. "The biggest difference this election cycle is that all of the Democratic candidates now have a personal commitment to young voters, she says. "We're leaps and bounds ahead of where we were in 2004, and that was leaps and bounds ahead of 2000."

Personally, my favorite part of the article comes from the "we don't get it" teams at the Guiliani, McCain, and Romney campaigns:

On the Republican side, neither McCain nor Giuliani have hired youth vote coordinators, though Giuiliani does employ the same Republican pollster that Smith's team has used. A spokesman for McCain emphasized the campaign's presence on Facebook and MySpace. Mitt Romney's campaign has not met with Smith, says a campaign spokesman, because he already learned how to do successful youth vote outreach as Massachusetts . Recently Romney announced a "Students for Mitt" program in which college students receive a 10% commission for every $1,000 they raise for the campaign.

Oh those Republicans … too busy firing staff and flip flopping on commutation to realize how important our generation is. 

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Hi all…my name is Tiana and I’m the new summer intern at the YDA in DC.  Having just arrived in the city (red-eye last Wednesday) and jumping right into the mix (start day last Thursday—yikes!)  the first project that I’ve been working on is college affordability.

Having not been super familiar with the reform bills in Congress before starting, it of course took a little reading up to really understand what this campaign is all about.   It didn’t take long to realize that both the bills in House and Senate propose some substantial (and meaningful) reforms to the current system.  I was sold as soon as I read about the proposed 2-page “EZ-FAFSA” but of course cutting student interest rates in half, increasing Pell grant scholarships, and starting to hold colleges accountable for their ever rising costs weren’t bad selling points either.  Clearly there are the usual opponents— some Republicans and huge lending firms and private banks who rather see their kickbacks increase than help America’s students, but I’m pretty sure that this is going to be one of many occasions to come where the voices on the right side of the issue (and by right, I of course me correct) will prevail. 

I encourage you to read up on college affordability and take action.  I definitely already wrote my congresspersons (all three of them, with faxes, at the simple click of a button) and you should too.  If not for the future of you having an easier FAFSA (or countless other benefits from this reform), do it for me and the at least 12 more I will have to fill out when my siblings get into college and my mother decides that it’s a good idea for me to fill all of theirs out too.

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