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.

I haven't spent much time on MTV in many, many years. Sure, I'll turn on the occasional Yo Momma marathon to while away the hours, but when it comes to making money or getting involved in politics, MTV just doesn't strike me as the best place to make an impact with my time.

But I'm not a politician.

I'm doing some research for a client (more about that later), and I've been spending some time on RocktheVote.com and MySpace. My first impression, and I'm sure it's accurate, is the overwhelming liberal message you get at those sites. Maybe that's from years of watching Kurt Loder and hearing Rock Stars complain about the environment, but when looking through the actual Rock the Vote site, something odd struck me. Only liberal think tanks and non-profits partner with Rock the Vote.

We know that younger voters often skew liberal, but don't vote, and by the time they vote, they're married with kids and paying taxes, which makes them Republicans. After 9/11, and in the middle of a war, there was hope that our youth was growing up at a faster rate than previous generations. Recent polls show that not to be the case, but I wonder if that's because we're not doing enough to fight the "progressive message" in the online forums where youth hang out.

Check out the sponsor page at RockTheVote.com.

Acorn, League of Women Voters, NAACP, People For The American Way, and True Majority.

Where's the Heritage Foundation? AmericanSolutions? The Hoover Institute? AEI? Where are the Freedom Vets and Move America Forward (or maybe to feed conspiracy theories, the PR firm for the Swift Boat Vets)? The answer is we're nowhere to be found. We've given up on MTV and their viewers and then blame it on the youth when they don't understand the conservative message.

We know the Democrats spent 2004 (and 2006) trying to scare young voters by telling that Republican wars were going to lead to a military draft. The story, though denied by all major Republicans, is an effective tactic, and though we deny it in the major papers and on blogs - what happens when MTV tells the story?

If we're serious about combatting the liberal message, web-savvy conservative organizations have to get in the game.

It starts at Rock the Vote, but that's just one website. Where else are we dropping the ball with our youth?