The roots of Students for Barack Obama are the stuff of legend:
In the summer of 2006, on July 7th, some eight months before Obama announced his run for president, Bowdoin College junior Meredith Segal created a Facebook group that went on to reach fully-fledged PAC-status before being rolled into Obama's campaign organization as its official student wing.
By February when Obama's campaign was actually launched nine months ago, Students for Barack Obama was already:
a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members and chapters at 80 colleges, the most structured grass-roots student movement -- there's a director of field operations, an Internet director, a finance director and a blog team director -- in the presidential campaign so far.
Many of those student leaders are still involved in what is a fully-fledged student leadership. As of October 22nd, according to a campaign press release, Students for Barack Obama has more than 600 chapters on college campuses and high schools across the country.
In Iowa, because of a state law that young voters be able to caucus so long as they turn 18 in time for the November general election, nearly all of high school seniors will be eligible to vote. Students for Barack Obama has responded by organizing chapters at more than a third of Iowa high schools.
In all, by my count, they have chapters on at least nineteen college campuses and at a stunning 144 high schools across Iowa, with new chapters being added daily.
In New Hampshire, Students for Barack Obama has chapters at all of New Hampshire's twelve college campuses with five full-time campaign staff members aiding student organizing efforts.
No matter which candidate you support, this level of grassroots organization among students bodes well for the future of Democratic Party politics.
A. Clinton Campaign Announces Students for Hillary
Last week, the Clinton campaign, in something of an afterthought, seems to have finally discovered youth voters and announced that they were going to start up a top-down campus outreach organization --- ironically nearly sixteen months to the day after Meredith Segal, in a grassroots effort, created Students for Barack Obama. Students have been organizing and fundraising for Obama for literally well over a year. This level of organization and engagement with student leaders will pay dividends come primary season.
But the irony goes further: The Clinton campaign bragged in a press release about its support on the long-antiquated Friendster network and of 50,000 friends on Facebook, "failing to note," as blogger Mike Connery put it, "the well-known fact that an anti-Hillary group has 10 times as many supporters."
Mike Connery also slammed the new Students for Hillary website:
[T]he campaign also launched Hillblazers, a website aimed at organizing young voters. Hillblazers is a stale, barebones website with a depressing color scheme and zero dynamic content. Most links send the user over to the main Clinton website, and there's nothing to do except allow the campaign to harvest your personal contact information. The action items are a joke, and their idea of contributing to the campaign is to "visualize change." In real person speak, that's code for purchase and wear our schwag.
Make no mistake. There will be an earnest and hard-fought battle for youth voters this primary season --- when the voices of young people will matter as never before --- and no candidate can take their support for granted. But the Obama campaign has shown the commitment and organization not only to turn out young voters at the polls but to offer opportunities for leadership training.
Young people are not just votes, they are not just cheap sources of volunteers and hype, they are the future of this country. And the Obama campaign, with its long-standing support of Students for Barack Obama and their extraordinary and popular series of Camp Obama training sessions across the country, has shown its dedication to involving them in the process.
The investment in training young people will have an impact not only on this election but on many elections to come. On this front, the Clinton campaign is light-years behind.
How many future leaders will be able to say that they got their first taste of grassroots politics, as well as met and formed networks while working on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and after attending Camp Obama?
B. Spotlight: Students for Barack Obama and the Iowa Caucus
Here are some of the latest innovative methods that Students for Barack Obama is using to win Iowa:
1. Winter Intern Program: After months of training young people through Camp Obama and organizing student chapters across the country, the Obama campaign is asking young people to spend their winter vacation interning with the campaign in one of the early primary states.
The Winter Interns prgram is organizing housing for interns, and due to the early Iowa caucus date of January 3rd, students will be able to remain in Iowa through the election.
2. Iowa ID Program: Since the Iowa caucus will take place over winter break and Iowa is most likely a net exporter of college students, many out-of-state students will be home in Iowa and able to caucus.
But how to reach these students? Students for Barack Obama has launched the "Iowa ID Program," using their nationwide network of more than 600 chapters to track down Iowa students on their college campuses in other states.
Each student chapter in the country is utillizing Facebook to track down Iowans at their school and get them information to encourage them to caucus for Obama.
3. Iowa Student Caucus Page:
The Obama campaign has launched a webpage aimed exclusively at Iowa students, with a video channel featuring Usher explaining the basics of the Iowa caucus system and clips from recent events for youth voters; a map of high school and college chapters; an online pledge system; and Flickr slideshows from recent Iowa events for young people.
4. Youth Canvassing
Special iChange youth canvassing trips are being organized for young people to spread the word in their communities. Students for Barack Obama in Wisconsin and Illinois have already been organizing weekly bus trips to Iowa to canvass.
5. Text Messaging Program
The Obama campaign, at least in New Hampshire, has organized a text messaging program aimed at students. Via a campaign press release:
Those who prefer to communicate by text message can sign up to have regular updates on campaign events and candidate visits sent directly to their mobile phones. To join Obama Mobile, students at each campus simply text a campus-unique signup code (for example, "DART" for Dartmouth students) to "OBAMA" (62262). The text messsaging program also allows canvassers to communicate with the campaign ––– providing updates and asking for assistance or directions throughout the day.
C. Student Voters Matter
Young people make up 22% of the population in Iowa and increased their participation in the caucus by 10% from 2004 over 2000. A trend of dramatically increasing turnout among young people in recent cycles and an exciting primary season eliciting lots of interest (60% of young people reportedfollowing the election closely over 30% the same time last cycle), and an extremely organized effort by the Obama campaign to turn out young and high school voters all bode well for an unprecendented turnout.
Rock the Vote and the Iowa Secretary of State's office also recently announced a combined effort called "Rock the Caucus," to host mock caucuses, educate young people about the caucus system, and boost peer-to-peer outreach efforts.
These efforts will pay off not only now but for many election cycles to come.
Cross-posted on One Million Strong