Voter Registration in California Surges

by: psericks

Fri Feb 01, 2008 at 18:08:17 PM CST

(h/t California Democratic Party)

The deadline for registering to vote in California was January 22nd.  Remarkably, 700,000 new voters have been added to the rolls, with 240,000 having registered since December alone.  And among new registrants, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a margin of four to one. 

It's worth noting though the price that California is paying for not having same-day registration.  Anyone wishing this week that they could have registered is out of luck, since the registration deadline was arbitrarily set at two weeks before the election.

The truly dramatic turnout that we saw in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, especially among young voters, was in part a result of same-day registration.

The Real Strength of Obama's Student Organization

by: psericks

Tue Nov 06, 2007 at 09:27:38 AM CST

The roots of Students for Barack Obama are the stuff of legend: 

In the summer of 2006, on July 7th, some eight months before Obama announced his run for president, Bowdoin College junior Meredith Segal created a Facebook group that went on to reach fully-fledged PAC-status before being rolled into Obama's campaign organization as its official student wing.

By February when Obama's campaign was actually launched nine months ago, Students for Barack Obama was already:

a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members and chapters at 80 colleges, the most structured grass-roots student movement -- there's a director of field operations, an Internet director, a finance director and a blog team director -- in the presidential campaign so far.

Many of those student leaders are still involved in what is a fully-fledged student leadership.  As of October 22nd, according to a campaign press release, Students for Barack Obama has more than 600 chapters on college campuses and high schools across the country.

In Iowa, because of a state law that young voters be able to caucus so long as they turn 18 in time for the November general election, nearly all of high school seniors will be eligible to vote.  Students for Barack Obama has responded by organizing chapters at more than a third of Iowa high schools.

In all, by my count, they have chapters on at least nineteen college campuses and at a stunning 144 high schools across Iowa, with new chapters being added daily. 

In New Hampshire, Students for Barack Obama has chapters at all of New Hampshire's twelve college campuses with five full-time campaign staff members aiding student organizing efforts.

No matter which candidate you support, this level of grassroots organization among students bodes well for the future of Democratic Party politics. 

Iowa Caucus Set for January 3rd?

by: psericks

Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 14:32:29 PM CDT

(h/t icebergslim) 

Chase Martyn over at Iowa Independent has a good analysis of what this means for the Democratic field.  (1) Negative ads will be hard to run over Christmas.   (2) Iowans may be just returning from holiday/New Year vacations --- meaning they would be inaccessible to campaign canvassers.  (3) A very important point about youth turnout:

No colleges or universities will be back from Winter Break by this date. Conventional wisdom is that this will make Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign to organize students difficult, but the payoffs of a good student organization will be larger if students are spread out across multiple cities rather than concentrated in a few big precincts.

I think the consequences of this are totally unclear.  Out-of-state students will most likely be gone.  On the other hand, in-state students won't have their influence diluted by being concentrated in a few precincts. 

Second, if Obama has a lot of volunteers among students, having them spread out across the state and living at home isn't so bad either --- though then they're not being motivated by their peers.  Or perhaps being at home means they'll be dragged to the caucus by their parents?  Who knows.  In all likelihood, the situation is too complex to be a net plus or a net negative.  Either way, it seems right that the stakes are higher for Obama or any youth voter turnout organization.

Obama's Youth Director Hans Riemer argued in a radio interview that the campaign would actually prefer that students be at home for the caucus.  More after the jump...