Reply #42: In Youth Organizing, the Old Becomes New Again [View All]

Update: This post has been updated in response to the comment by Jesse Kocher to more accurately represent the relationships and roles of Driving Votes, Swing Semester, and Swing the State. Thanks to Jesse for the clarifications.

In 2004, Democratic politics witnessed a boom in youth organizing. Young people created dozens of new institutions that pioneered non-traditional methods for engaging their peers on and offline. Drinking clubs that maintained political interest and moved people slowly into political activism, road trips to swing states, peer to peer voter registration and candidate fundraising at small live music events, the list goes on and on.

These were not always the best and most efficient organizations on the block, but they identified and filled a vacuum in progressive youth politics that was not filled by traditional organizations like the PIRGs and the College Democrats. They pioneered new tactics, changed the way that many political activists thought about organizing, and they engaged many young voters that would not otherwise become involved in politics, helping to drive 4.3 million new young voters to the polls in 2004.

As often happens in progressive politics, the amount of money available to these organizations declined drastically after the election. Some organizations struggled and managed to survive. Others limped along until they could no longer be sustained. People moved on to other jobs. Sometimes in politics, sometimes not.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/passingthrough/337741