Take a good look at the reason why the Democrats are going to smash Republicans at the polls in November:

So tonight, for the first time, I used LinkedIn's Q&A feature. Naturally, my question revolved around how the GOP could work to win back the youth vote. Here's the note I sent to about 200 of my connections:

Today's article in the Politico.com [h/t Second Cup] brings more attention to a disturbing trend for those of us concerned about the longevity and continuity of the Republican Party: We are losing the under-30 vote (a.k.a. Gen Next/Millennial) like never before.

I've tried YouTube before to see if anyone would answer the question of how we reverse the trend.

My question to President Bush - unanswered.

My question to Mitt Romney - unanswered.

My question to the YouTube Republican debate - didn't make the editorial cut.

So I've decided to ask the question here - at our LinkedIn community.

I understand the "hip" and "cool" challenge that Barack brings to the debate for any of his opponents. However, I think we could at least try and off-set his popularity by doing a better job of communicating the reasons why we all found the Party in the first place.

So I want your thoughts and input on this thread.

How can we work to ensure that John McCain wins the Gen Next vote?

At CPAC, I ran into Danny Glover, the senior producer and program director of Eyeblast.tv, the latest project by the Media Research Center.

I grabbed my video camera and asked Danny about the new site -- perhaps another "NicheTube"(?) -- here's the interview:

From the about section:

Eyeblast is an online platform for people to share and view videos, photos, articles and opinions on topics that are important to them -- from news to political issues and rip-roaring humor. People use the site to upload, view and share content, connect with friends, classmates and colleagues and make new acquaintances.

I've created a new account but I think the site is still in a beta stage as it said I'd have to wait three days to upload content.

[Disclosure: I serve on the Board of Advisors to the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute.]

A tipster passes along a new Pew Research Center study titled, "Social Networking and Videos Take Off: Internet's Broader Role in Campaign 2008." [Download study as PDF here.]

There are some excellent nuggets in the survey and I would urge others to dig through the report and add them to the comments of this post.

Here are a few that I found in a brief first-read:

The internet is living up to its potential as a major source for news about the presidential campaign. Nearly a quarter of Americans (24%) say they regularly learn something about the campaign from the internet, almost the double the percentage from a comparable point in the 2004 campaign (13%).

Moreover, the internet has now become a leading source of campaign news for young people and the role of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook is a notable part of the story. Fully 42% of those ages 18 to 29 say they regularly learn about the campaign from the internet, the highest percentage for any news source. In January 2004, just 20% of young people said they routinely got campaign news from the internet.

Of note, TV is still on top as the main source for news, but slipping…

Despite the growth of the internet for campaign news, television remains the public’s main source for such information. However, television is not as dominant as at once was: 60% say they get most of their news about the presidential election from television (local, cable and network outlets combined), down from 68% at comparable points in the 2004 and 2000 campaigns.

By this measure, the internet is still a secondary news source. Only 15% of Americans say they get most of their news about the election online, although that figure has more than doubled since 2004 (from 6%).

Overall, 26% of Americans mention the internet either first or second as their main source of election news. Among young people, the internet is eroding television’s advantage as a main source for election news. Six-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 cite television as their main source for election news, down from 75% four years ago. Over that time, the proportion citing the internet has more than doubled – from 21% to 46%.

Revolution.

A source at the RNC passed along a memo compiled by the DNC (probably meant to be a secret memo, eh?) with this nugget showing a significant increase in the youth vote:

Young People Breaking for Democrats:

* Youth turnout tripled in Iowa. This dramatic increase was enjoyed overwhelmingly by Democrats, not Republicans. Of the 65,230 total young people (ages 17 to 29) who participated in the Iowa caucuses yesterday, 52,580 caucused for Democrats while only 12,650 caucused for Republicans. That’s a more than 4-to-1 advantage for Democrats among young people. The numbers show that young people overwhelmingly favor Democrats. Of the young people who turned out, 80% caucused for a Democrat. In total, 22% of Democratic caucus goers were young people, an increase from 17% in 2004 and 9% in 2000. In contrast, only 11% of the Republican caucus goers were young people. [CIRCLE www.civicyouth.org; Young Voter PAC; ABC News 1/4/07]

* Youth turnout in New Hampshire surged to 37% this year, from 18% in 2004 and 28% in 2000. 61% of youth voters supported Democrats over Republicans. That’s 43,753 young people going for Democrats and only 28,288 young people going for Republicans. In the Democratic primary, young voters participated in higher numbers than older voters. According to CNN exit polling, 18% of voters in the Democratic primary were 29 or under, 15% were 30-39, and 13% were 65 and older. [Young Voter PAC]

Of course, let's make sure that we note that Young Voter PAC is a Democratic operation. To my knowledge, no such political action committee exists on our side of the aisle.

Unfortunately, it looks as though Gen Next is solidly Gen Democrat, a concern we've raised time and time again in this space.

But, hey, young people don't vote. Right? Pfffffft.

Here's my question for the upcoming YouTube-CNN debate:

The gist of my question:

Forty-eight percent of Gen Next identify more with the Democratic Party while just 35 percent feel connected to the GOP, according to recent data from the prestigious, nonpartisan Pew Research Center, making this the least-Republican generation of all generations currently voting.

If you're elected President, what will you do to reach out to Gen Next voters?

For further thoughts on this issue, check out my previous posts:

* Gen Next = Gen Democrat (Jan. 25, 2007)
* Is Karl Rove a Modern Republican? (March 27, 2007)
* VIDEO: Dear President Bush (May 24, 2007)
* Rock the (Right) Vote (Sept. 10, 2007)

Liberal blogger Matt Stoller of OpenLeft draws our attention to a new widget produced by Rock The Vote, which he's calling, the "ActBlue for voter registration."

Stoller cautiously concludes that this widget *might* be a big deal and includes some screeners:

I've been playing around with this new widget from Rock the Vote, which lets anyone create their own voter registration program, kind of like Actblue for voter registration. It's potentially groundbreaking, and you can sign up here.

If I mounted a serious voter registration drive on my site, I would be able to keep the contact information of whoever registered. That means that I can contact them the day they vote, and go to politicians and say 'hey, 1834 voters, including 23 in your district', registered to vote through this site. You ought to listen to their concerns.

Stoller shouldn't have been so cautious. This widget is a really big deal, because it's going to help activists do exactly what James Durbin wrote about, "Go where the youth are." Let's dig in a bit more.

When you read about Karl Rove and Lee Atwater's early days as young GOP operatives, they spent a lot of their time traveling to college campuses, training college Republicans how to hold effective voter registration drives. As Karl Rove said back when he had more hair:

“First of all voter registration is probably the most important function that we are undertaking now. We are also seeking to train college students to run voter registration drives and work to involve young people in campaigns. You can’t get a 35 year old to teach the Republican Party how to get the young people…just can’t rely upon it. Young people have to reach other young people and that’s what we’re seeking to do.”

Tomorrow's Karl Rove's and Lee Atwater's need to follow their role models and start registering their friends and colleagues as Republicans.

The campus registration drives should absolutely remain a part of the strategy, but thanks to modern tools like this Rock The Vote widget, we can now go where everyone in college spends a lot of their time: online.

The further we lower the barrier of entry to the democratic process the better (for both sides). However, it's my hope that we'll be able to hold our ground with the Gen Next GOP which we're currently losing.

The New York Times has the full story but here's an excerpt...

The year was 1973, and Karl Rove was looking for help — from the Nixon White House.

Tucked away inside 78,000 pages of documents from the Nixon administration, released by the National Archives earlier this week, is a little gem: a strategy memorandum from the man who would go on to become the architect of President Bush’s rise to political power.

Mr. Rove, then a 22-year-old aide on Capitol Hill, was planning a run to become chairman of the College Republicans, a position he would ultimately win twice. So he wrote to Anne Armstrong, then counselor to Nixon. Mrs. Armstrong had been co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, and therefore Mr. Rove’s ultimate boss the previous year when he was executive director of the college group.

* * * *
In his memorandum, Mr. Rove offered suggestions, from having college Republican clubs show “nonpolitical films for fund-raising (e.g. John Wayne flicks, ‘Reefer Madness’)” to developing a “Student Guide to Lobbying” with a “forward by Bush/Nixon.” That, of course, would be the elder George Bush, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, through whom Mr. Rove first met the current occupant of the White House.

Mr. Rove’s memorandum also proposes building a group of “New Federalism Advocates,” modeled on “Friends of Nixon,” a Nixon campaign committee. The group would have representatives from each state who, Mr. Rove suggested, could meet in Washington for “extensive briefings” with top administration officials like John D. Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman.

Of course, readers of this space know that we've been following Karl Rove's advice to reach out to Gen Next voters for quite a while (Karl Rove's clips starts at 00:59):

Mr. Rove -- please do our Party and America's youth a favor and urge the RNC and The White House to reach out to Gen Next once again.

You've tried to penetrate the machine before when you were sitting in our shoes and thought no one was listening. That's how we feel today.

You can change that.

According to a new New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll about young voters - those between the ages of 17-29 - the Republican Party has still failed to make any progress:

The poll offers a snapshot of a group whose energy and idealism have always been as alluring to politicians as its scattered focus and shifting interests have been frustrating. It found that substantially more Americans ages 17 to 29 than four years ago are paying attention to the presidential race. But they appeared to be really familiar with only two of the candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats.

They have continued a long-term drift away from the Republican Party. And although they are just as worried as the general population about the outlook for the country and think their generation is likely to be worse off than that of their parents, they retain a belief that their votes can make a difference, the poll found.

More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.

Of course, I've recently asked President Bush about this issue:

And Mitt Romney:

Neither have responded.

Does the Republican Party care that we're losing an entire generation of voters to the Democratic Party? If so, what is the plan to start winning back the hearts and minds of America's youth?

Last week Patrick Ruffini wrote about benefits of using the web to mobilize grassroots and reach opinion leaders and early adopters. Young Voter Strategies at George Washington University recently released a new study that shows e-campaigns aren't just added bonuses, but crucial to winning tight elections.

Something changed in 2004 and again in 2006. Suddenly, voters aged 18-29 started turning up at the polls. Millenials, those born between 1977 and 1997, cast 4.3 million more votes in 2004 than 2000 with 49% of the age group voting. In 2006, Millenials increased their votes by 2 million from the 2002 mid-term election. If this trend continues, our youngest voters will be the deciding factor in many elections.

The bad news is that Millenials largely favor Democrats. In 2006, 60% of 18-29 year-olds voters cast ballots for Democratic candidates. The picture gets a little more scary when factoring in research that voting is habit forming, and once an individual supports a particular party for three elections, they are likely to form a life-long loyalty to that party. However, not all is bleak for the Republicans.

According to YVS,

Today's young Republicans are very loyal Republicans--but they need to be targeted and turned out. ...young Republicans are more loyal and more intensely Republican than older Republicans. 60% believe the country is headed in the right direction. President Bush has a favorable rating of 76%, and the Republican Party has a favorable rating of 85%.

Young supporters of the Republican Party are out there and excited about being a Republican, but they won't show up on their own. They need to be asked, and the best way to reach them isn't through more paid advertising.

E-campaigns are crucial for reaching these eager, young voters. If asked, not only will they turn up at the polls, but they'll volunteer and work long hours to help out. The key here is reaching out to them on their terms. Millenials are more tech and media savvy than any other generation. Broadcast campaigns won't reach them. If tight races mean turning out every potential vote, campaigns must invest resources in the web.

This requires creating a strategy that goes beyond candidate blogs. Social networking is the hub that Millenials' lives revolve around. A Harvard Institute of Politics study in 2006 found that 97% of all college students logged onto Facebook at least once a month and that population is quickly entering the workforce. According to Facebook numbers, average users log onto the site at least 10-12 times a day.

While Facebook may seem like the silver bullet of the youth vote, it takes personal interaction to reach these voters. The tactics aren't expensive but are labor intensive. The key to recruiting new Republicans is developing one-on-one relationships. Facebook works to recruit, identify and gather these supporters. It's up to the campaigns to invest the manpower to reach them.

YVS sums it up pretty well:

For Republicans, the past two elections should spur them to devote resources to stemming the flow of today's youth to the Democratic Party. Not all young adults vote Democratic, and plenty of those who did in 2006 are not yet wed to the party. In 2008 and beyond, Republicans should develop a strategy to win back many of those young voters and build their party for the future.