Obama Plans to Use Young Voters To Attract (More) Young Voters

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WSJ: Obama Plans to Use Young Voters To Attract (More) Young Voters
By SARA MURRAY
August 28, 2008; Page A6

DENVER -- Barack Obama's chances of winning the presidency could rest on the votes of 20-to-30-year-olds -- and, to an unprecedented degree, he is letting his young supporters decide how to win those votes.

The youth vote is the only spot on the age spectrum where the Democrat has a clear advantage over presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, completed last week, Sen. Obama leads 55% to 37% among likely voters ages 18 to 34. Sen. McCain leads or the candidates are in a statistical dead heat in every other age group. Sen. Obama has already managed to generate heightened interest among young voters: Youth turnout in the Democratic primaries and caucuses rose to 17% compared with 9% in 2000, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

For the Obama campaign, the emerging strategy to get young voters to turn out in November is to let young supporters in cities and on college campuses decide what works best in their own communities, and give them the budget they need to execute those strategies. "We have organizers assigned to campuses," says Leigh Arsenault, director of the youth vote for the Obama campaign. "That's their turf. That's who they organize, that's who they work with." The campaign declined to say how much it had budgeted for the effort....

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In part, the local-autonomy approach emerged from lessons learned during the primary season. Student organizers at Boston College, for instance, gathered students to canvass community colleges in nearby Berlin and Manchester, N.H., says Joshua Darr, the 21-year-old Massachusetts director of Students for Barack Obama. "The Obama campaign has really trusted students to organize their own campuses and that's very encouraging," says Mr. Darr.

More broadly, the foundation for the fall effort also was laid in the primary season. It began with programs such as Students for Barack Obama, which now has more than 700 chapters across 50 states, my.barackobama.com and the Barack Obama Facebook group, which has more than 1.5 million members. More than 6.5 million voters under 30 turned out in primaries and caucuses and the majority voted for Democrats....

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