Democrats Underfunding Youth Infrastructure

[Prank Monkey]

In their July/August issue,Utne explores the differences between how Conservatives and Progressives build their bench. It's an OK primer on how the Republicans fund/foster leadership programs for their young prospects, and how Progressives are playing catch-up (the real article to read here is My Right Wing Degree), but I'm not wild about some of the examples they used to depict young progressives. Particularly their focus on GreenCorps. Whether that says more about the depth of reporting or the state of young progressive leadership programs and those who attend them is debatable. And it probably should be debated.

But in writing this, I wanted to highlight one particularly troubling fact (emphasis mine):

"We do have more people to draw from as raw material on college campuses," says David Halperin. But the Leadership Institute has a $9.4 million budget, and its Campus Leadership Program is expanding rapidly. Between September 2004 and May 2006 the number of conservative student groups it helped start grew from 216 to 731. This fall Blackwell will dispatch 60 field staff members across the country and expects to push that total to 1,000 groups by the end of the year. By contrast, Green Corps and Campus Progress each have fewer than 20 staffers and budgets of about $1.5 million.

To put it bluntly, this is bullshit. In 2004, over $200 million was poured into building progressive infrastructure for the election. Many of those groups, like America Coming Together, were mothballed after the election. Some are reemerging now that the election cycle is heating up, others disapeared for good. The amount of that money directed to "young voter programs" during that same period was probably somewhere around the vicinity of $6-8 million.

Despite the fact that many of these groups (Music for America, PunkVoter, Indyvoter, Young Voter Alliance, MoveOn Student Action) were started from scratch in late 2003 and early 2004, and most of the staff were political newbies, we were still able to increase turnout to record levels and young people were the only voting block in the country to swing for Kerry. That $6-8 million was clearly the best investment progressive funders made in the 2004 election cycle. So why are our "youth" groups struggling to find funding in these off years, and why aren't progressive funders working to correct the imbalance between the Right and the Left in building our respective benches?

Young voters are the keys to a future Democratic majority. Let's look at the facts:

• We are the largest voting block in the country aside from the Boomers, with over 60-70 million members


• We were the only group to break for Kerry in '04. (pdf)


• We've shown that we're ready to show up in off year elections with young voters helping achieve progressive victories in 2005 and 2006.


• We are the most diverse group in the country and are most of us are unreceptive to conservative "wedge issues."

Yet, as I've heard from friends who are heavily involved in youth organizing, many of the groups designed to reach this vital segment of the electorate are struggling to obtain funds. And as the Utne article makes clear, the Right has a clear money advantage in reaching millenials. This is bad for two reasons: 1) The right could potentially erase some of the gains Progressives made among young voters. If you read the NPI study linked above, many older millenials don't fall for "wedge" issues," but on matters of security and some social issues, the younger 13-18 year old segment is still a toss-up in terms of voter-ID. 2) Conservatives are investing heavily in the development of the next generation of their leadership, while our current generation of leaders is sucking up money and resources and inhibiting the development of our future leaders.

While some people are starting to get it, it seems that most of the money men who help build movements still don't realize that the biggest bang for their buck, and the smartest move for the progressive movement overall, is investing in programs to capture, organize, and train young voters and young progressive leaders.

Take a look at the quote from Utne again - in 2004, approximately $6-8 million was spent on ALL progressive young voter organizing, compared to $9.4 million that the Leadership Institute - a single organization - receives annually. That's a crisis in the making. Let's keep it from happening.

[Radical Activist]

1. Your examples are only election year organizations.

You're brining up organizations that started up specifically for the '04 Presidential election and either disbanded or shrank tremendously after the election. Those groups do little more than funnel young voters into the voting booth for the purpose of supporting candidates who may or may not represent the interests of young voters. That's not an effective way to build leadership.

The Democratic Party gave up on organizing young people years ago. The sad truth is that most students on college campuses who care about issues get involved in issue related groups but not College Democrats. That's the natural result of the Democratic Party not making a long term strategic effort to address young voters and the issues they care about. It makes sense in the short term when limited resources are spent on those who vote more often, but it is killing us in the long run. I think you're right about out what needs to be done, but the groups you mention do little more than election year GOTV, which is not enough.

[Prank Monkey]

2. Not true

Those groups - Music for America, Indy Voter, Drinking Liberally - these operate year round and work on local issues as well as national issues. MFA exists primarily as an entrance point for thousands of politically minded but unconnected people. Drinking Liberally build progressive community year round. Campus Progress - that's a 24/7/365 organization building journalists, speakers, and activists.

Granted, there is not enough cooperation between them. There could be a lot more coordination and "moving people up the ladder of particiption," but it is innaccurate to say that they are purely GOTV groups.

[Radical Activist]

3. Drinking Liberally is a social group

it involves a lot of people who aren't young and is legally non-partisan. ACT, the biggest and most well funded or your examples, is effectively gone. So what you've got left is two small, little known groups that can't even officially support Democratic candidates. I think that makes my point. Most of the Democratic money is going into big groups that are around for the election but don't work long-term to build leadership. Campus Progress looks nice but even that is non-partisan.