Democratic donors seeking young vote

[cal04]

Youth may be wasted on the young but not $3 million. Several deep-pocketed Democratic donors, frustrated with party chairman Howard Dean's effort to attract young voters, are offering up to $3 million in grants to organizations that could persuade those age 18-24 to vote Democratic. "The party's plans to reach out to young people are incredibly insufficient," said Deborah Rappaport of Redwood, Calif., one of the donors. "If we don't pay attention to them now, we will lose them."

Rappaport planned to announce the plan to award grants on Friday at a convention of liberal activists in Las Vegas. The donors plan to award up to a dozen grants over the next three years that could total $250,000 each to groups or individuals in 12 states. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.

The donors include Rappaport and her husband, high-tech investor Andy Rappaport, and businessmen Jonathan and Peter Lewis. They cite the results of the 2004 presidential election in which those 18-29 were the only age group to back Democratic nominee John Kerry. The Massachusetts senator won that group 54 percent to 45 percent, according to exit polls. About 47 percent of Americans 18-24 voted in 2004, up from 36 percent in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. No other age group increased its turnout by more than 5 percentage points. Even with the increase, the youngest voters still had the lowest turnout rate. Nearly three of every four people aged 55-74 voted in 2004.

Luis Miranda, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, countered that the party has made several efforts to mobilize young voters, including the creation of a youth coordinating council and leadership training for College Democrats in 40 states. Dean is scheduled to address the convention on Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_el_ge/democrats_young_voters

[madfloridian]

1. Why is she giving grants....why not give it to the DNC and specify..

it as a grant for young people.

They are the ones behind the NDN (Simon Rosenberg) and the new media for the left.

It makes little sense to give to other people and not specify it for the DNC..unless there is more to it.

I would love to see which organizations and persons get the 3 million.

This is very odd, because Dean has a done a lot with the College Democrats. :shrug:

[Warpy]

2. Those hidebound old farts would get them if they'd talk about

WAGES. That is the one thing the young will understand perfectly, that this country used to have a social contract in place that said a day's work should pay a fair day's wage, a contract that was enforced by a strong minimum wage law that kept the poorest workers from starving.

Fast forward to today, when that minimum wage won't support a single worker in safe housing, allow him to visit the doctor when he's sick, or provide a decent diet.

The wedge issue is WAGES. No amount of throwing money at think tanks and canvassers is going to change that. If they want to WIN all ages, but especially those starting out, they're going to talk about WAGES.

If they fail to do this, they're fools and they richly deserve to be shut out of government AGAIN.