Do you sense turnout will be higher than usual for 18-24 year olds?

[WI_DEM]

I do. I live in Madison and work close to campus and every day when I go for my noon walk I see college kids out registering people to vote and talking up John Kerry. I see alot of interest and it is clear that this election is going to count. I think alot of these kids do worry about Iraq and the safety of the world if Bush is elected. They also might have fears about the draft.

They say young voters are usually apathetic. But I think this year will change that. Most polls I've seen show young voters favor Kerry by a solid margin. So turnout of this group will be vital. Plus alot of these young voters are not polled because they didn't vote before or they can't be reached due to having cell phones.

What do you get a sense of the turnout potential of young voters this year?

[grace0418]

1. Oh absolutely

I think we'll be very surprised by voter turnout overall, and most of those new voters will be people that got mad enough to get off their duffs and get rid of Bush. That's what the polls miss and why we shouldn't worry.

[Dems Will Win]

38. I think it's the DRAFTgetting the Millennials out & making them think!

PRINT THE PDF: http://somnamblst.tripod.com/draftalert.pdf
HANG THIS FLYER EVERYWHERE

This is a SPECIAL MILITARY DRAFT ALERT. THIS IS NOT THE RANGEL DRAFT BILL, THIS IS NEW! THIS IS BUSH QUIETLY READYING THE COMBAT DRAFT AND HAVING THE SELECTIVE SERVICE CREATE A NEW DRAFT FOR 2005.

In May, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published an article about a document they received through the Freedom of Information Act. It was revealed that the SSS is currently “designing procedures” for the implementation of a “Skills Draft” after holding a top-level meeting on it with Deputy Undersecretaries at the Defense Department. This draft would change the very mission of the Selective Service and require “virtually every young American”, male and female ages 18-34, to register for the Skills Draft and list all the occupations they are proficient in to fill labor shortages throughout nearly the entire government.

Here, for the first time, is the FOI document itself:

http://blatanttruth.org/selective_service091304.pdf

This document is real, having been acknowledged by the DoD and the SSS when they said no action is being taken on it at the present time, as reported:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html

Although Congress would have to approve new legislation to create a Skills Draft or reinstate the combat draft, Family Circle reported in its July 13 issue that Karl Rove has polled GOP members of Congress in September 2002 to see if they would support the President if he requests reinstatement. The Republicans said they would vote for the draft.

In addition, the SSS itself has said that it is “designing procedures” (Seattle PI, May 1, 2004) to implement the skills draft, meaning designing the compliance cards and the data fields needed to keep track of “virtually every young American” and their skills. Acting Director of the SSS Brodsky has also said the Skills Draft is the “top priority” of the Selective Service for 2004. The Issue Paper options include:

- Allow a non-combat draft for shortages in critical skills, without calling a combat draft.

- Fill labor shortages of all kinds throughout not only DoD but the Dept. of Homeland Security and other agencies, especially high-paying professionals like computer networking specialist or linguist.

- Create a single-point, all-inclusive database, in which every young person would be forced to send in a “self-declaration” of all of their critical skills, chosen from a long list of occupations like the Armed Forces Specialty Code. The usual penalties of imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine would apply to all non-registrants.

In the secret planning meeting document, the next steps strongly recommended by SSS Acting Director Brodsky were:

1. “Promptly” redefine the SSS Mission to draft men and women up to age 34 for skills, and deliver them within 90 days or sooner to the Department of Defense. Program a massive database to be ready to enter millions of names of those registering their critical skills.

2. Expand mission to deliver personnel in skills draft to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including FEMA, NSC, Border Patrol, INS, Customs, Corporation for National Service, Public Health Service and other agencies.

3. Form interagency task force to provide Administration with recommendation on this skills draft for the entire government.

4. Obtain White House Statement of Administration Policy on the future of the SSS.

5. Be prepared to market the skills draft, raising the non-combat age to 34 and the drafting of women to the Armed Services and Appropriations Committee.

In contrast to this planning and preparation to create a targeted draft, Kerry plans to spend an additional $7 billion to strengthen the Volunteer Army in what is essentially a “No-Draft Plan”. Moreover, Kerry is strongly opposed to the neo-con plan revealed in Wes Clark’s book Winning Modern Wars, in which Clark was told by a senior Pentagon official that invasions of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and Somalia were planned and still to come over the next three years.

DON'T FORGET TO USE THE .PDF NOT THE .GIF FILE.

BUSH '04 = DRAFT '05

KERRY '04 = PNAC OUT THE DOOR!

[oasis]

41. Bush+PNAC=DRAFT. There is no getting around it.

[punpirate]

2. Going to be bigger than usual...

... but not remarkably so. Generally, I think new graduates are having a much tougher time find decently paying work just out of school than in the `90s; that will have an effect, and the far-off prospect of a universal draft will bring out some more.

But, the Young Republicans are registering college students, too.

For now, I guess one will have to keep an eye on the 18-24 age group in polls to get a glimpse of how it's going.

Cheers.

[izzie]

16. Someone said on TV yesterday that we say that every 4 years

but it never comes about. Any figures on that?

[punpirate]

42. I don't know of any statistical...

... analyses published to date on new voting registrations in that age group. I'm simply offering reasons that are prominent in this voting cycle for increased registration.

Cheers.

[physaf]

34. it seems that every year the college group gets

out to vote for some reason or other, though. it doesn't seem that this year is remarkable in most ways. i hope it is, though.

[TriMetFan]

3. I Agree with you.

I drive a city bus here in Portland OR. and I have been seeing a lot of young people trying to get the 18-21 to register to vote. I have been able to talk to a couple of them and they are talking about the draft. I think this is a group that no one is thinking about. But I think they will make the difference.:)

[4morewars]

4. YES !!!!!!!!!!

I'm in Michigan and I can attest to the fact that these kids are NOT apathetic !!! I am a deputy registrar and I have yet to register anyone because they are ALL registered !!!! AND, extremely aware of all the issues and all too aware of *bushco's failings ! I love talking with them !!!! It gives me a great feeling !!! We did a lit drop two weeks ago in my town, and 61 volunteers showed up !!!!!!!!! SIXTY-ONE(I was expecting the same 5-10 people that always show up) At least half of these were in that age group. I have never seen anything like it in my 41 years !

[Sugarbleus]

6. Wow, your report is very exciting!!

I've got "flyers" for g.son and hubby to pass out regarding DRAFT '05 under Bush.

Your report gives me even more enthusiasm. WTG, Michigan :kick:

[4morewars]

13. Glad to be of help !!!

I'm still stoked from having met John Edwards last Sunday !!! And I love spreading the enthusiasm, you are proof that it is working !!!!! Pass it on !!! Peace, JOE

[Sugarbleus]

15. Done.

n/t

[physaf]

35. can you point me to a copy of that

draft'of bush flyer?

[Poiuyt]

36. dupe, sorry

[Poiuyt]

37. There's one here:

http://somnamblst.tripod.com/

Print them out and post on college campuses.

[WI_DEM]

39. Thank's for this very encouraging report

[Droopy]

5. I think that the youngsters are going to turn out higher than usual.

I travel around my state a lot for my job and on all the rock-n-roll stations they are promoting gatherings to get people registered to vote. They'll have a concert and there will be people there registering people to vote. They'll be doing a promotion at a car lot and they will have people there registering people to vote.

I also think that a lot of young people are worrying about the draft and you've gotta think that a lot of young women are worried about their reproductive rights.

I think you are right in saying that young people tend to be apathetic about voting, but Bush has been the :wtf: president so I think a lot of young people have realized that politics do matter in their lives.

[Leilani]

7. If the turnout is significant, I will be surprised.

This age demographic continually underwhelms.

Also, college age kids have gotten more conservative; check out polls on abortion rights.

I think the conservatives will be working hard to register young people, & will offset Dem gains.

Hope I am wrong, but I doubt their vote will make a significant difference.

[EST]

48. I must agree.

I was in the transition (in WVa) during the VietNam era. The big thing was, If we are old enough to fight, why not drink or vote? The draft was very unpopular, and the draft lottery was yet unheard of. Voting age was lowered too late to participate in the Nixon election, and when it actually was enacted, the turnout among 18-24 year olds was extremely disappointing and was pretty evenly split, so no real diffrernce showed up. I suspect, at that age, the importance of sex, starting families, financial struggles, and the much vaunted feeling of invincability are just too overwhelming for any real notion of responsibility for designing and maintaining government to play much of a role.

[SangamonTaylor]

8. i'm 24 and i will be voting once I get my absentee ballot

Most people my age, however, feel they have 'no reason to vote' because we live in Texas...damn i hate that electoral college...

[mermaid]

29. See My Thread, about Too Damn Close in GD04

The Electoral College may work in our favor...COLORADO may be our Alamo!!
Read the thread to see why...

[SangamonTaylor]

30. oh, no doubt Kerry could beneftit from the electoral college

however, my point is that the electoral college makes people in large states not vote because they feel like their vote doesn't matter.

You know how many friends I have, who'd probably vote (for Kerry) but they figure it doesn't even matter. This, in my opinion, is one of the causes of the low voter turnout that has slowly become as American as apple pie.

[Knurled99]

9. My extremely conservative biased newspaper shows the effect...

I got so giddy when I saw about 4 letters to the editor of the Press Enterprise newspaper a couple weeks ago, in which conservatives were saying that it was unfair that groups like "Rock the Vote" were out there recruiting young people to vote. They all said that the younger kids had no business voting, because they were inexperienced in life, etc. etc... the real issue was that they know that the younger crowd being registered by these groups vote overwhelmingly democrat.

Last year I was in Statewide Student Senate for California Community Colleges. We put on a rally at the capitol in which about 15000 students attended, and I spoke to so many that were well-informed about Bush&co and ready to oust them from power that I was nearly overwhelmed. My generation does not love the boy king!

[A_Possum]

24. Guess it's ok with those conservatives for kids to fight

but they're too inexperienced to vote?

YOu need to write a letter to the editor on that one!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. I'm sensing turnout will be much higher than usual across all age groups.

[Blue-Jay]

11. Most of the voters that I've registered have been young.

I've regestered dozens of kids who think that GWB is an asshat. They don't get polled when the poll-wankers call numbers of "likely voters", but they're pissed off nevertheless.

Remember this: "likely voters" means "voters who have declared a political party in past elections". Those polls mean NOTHING. A majority supported Gore in the last election. I find it hard to believe that Dubya has gained more supporters than he's lost. I don't know any.

[Borgnine]

12. Of course.

I'm only 20, and this will be my first presidential election I can vote in. I know many my age who have been fired up to vote this smirking disaster out of office ever since the 2000 fiasco.

[strategery blunder]

14. Lots of Dems

I'm an independent-turned-Dem (by $hrub*co's insolence, of course), who only recently formally joined the Democratic Party. I went to the College Dems meeting in Kirksville, MO, and there wasn't enough room for all of us! The officers from last year said turnout was about 5 times higher than expected.:bounce:

Our second (and future) meetings were moved to a bigger facility, and the vast majority of the people who went to the first meeting also went to the second.:bounce:

Also, I should point out that we have enough volunteers to keep the Dem HQ open until 8 pm weekdays, while the rethuglicans can't even get people to man their phones, BWAHAHAHAHAHA:evilgrin:

This is in a fairly conservative part of the state, btw. Mark my words: High voter turnout will swing the election to Kerry, and the mediawhores will not know how to spin the November surprise.:):evilgrin:

[Old and In the Way]

17. This pic should cheer you up.

<>

[_NorCal_D_]

44. Great photo!

B-):thumbsup:

[Nana]

18. Asked my college-aged daughter..

..this question...and her sense of how things are going. She says her college is heavy pro-Kerry, including professors who have no problem stating their preference. She said she has seen numerous Kerry bumper stickers at school and only one * sticker. I asked her from her perspective what the major topics are and why Kerry is a favorite from what she has gathered by listening to others her age (she is 23)..she says the topics are Iraq, Jobs (actually, lack thereof), and the deficit. She's been to several all-day concerts (ex: Ozfest) where the performers repeatedly shout in very "direct" terms that * has got to go. She says the young adults overwhelming agree based on the audience reaction. She has a Kerry bumper sticker on her car and said she was stopped yesterday by another young student at a 7-11 who wanted to be sure she was registered to vote. (She is!) In her sense of things, Kerry is far ahead of *. Now, the most important factor in all of this, perhaps, is that her college is in TX!

[Arugula Latte]

23. Great!

I especially love that last sentence. Texas!

Welcome to DU! :hi: :toast:

[Nana]

46. thanks!

Might add...no discussion of memos, war records (on either side), either...all about Iraq, Jobs, Deficit!

[TexasSissy]

47. But will they actually go to the polls is the question. Young people

are notorious for not showing up at the polls (ask Dean where his young support base was on the night of the Iowa caucuses....they were at home studying for finals or escaping the extremely bad weather).

[Nay]

19. My son (age 21) has always voted because we are a politically

active family, but often his friends were apathetic. This year they are not. They are ALL registered, and they are all going to vote. And not for *asshole*.

[Davis_X_Machina]

20. Young male voters will still -- despite the virtual certainty of a draft -

-- overwhelmingly vote Republican, if my school is typical.

They'll be yelling "Hoo-yah! USA! USA!" right up to the moment when they're Medevac'ed to Landstuhl....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. 72 Was The First Election Where Eighteeen Year Olds

Got the Right To Vote And More Of Them Voted For Nixon Then McGovern....


Go figure....


But Clinton did well with young voters... Gore not so well.....


We'll see....

[AmerDem]

21. for sure

All polls don't even show the new registered voters this election.

[liberalpragmatist]

25. YES - I'm 19 and I see incredible interest in the election

I should note that I'm somewhat sheltered and I wouldn't view my experience as necessarily representative of all teenagers. I go to a private university with lots of really bright kids - almost everyone I know on campus is voting Kerry. Our WashU college Democrats meeting had a turnout of 250, which on our 5,000-strong campus is a large number and far more than they anticipated.

There are huge voter registration drives. Polls seem to match the interest. It really does to seem to me like there will be substantially higher turnout amoung youth than there has been - perhaps by 15-20 points, which would be incredible. And any higher youth turnout will greatly benefit Kerry.

We had a big concert yesterday. This one fusion hip-hop/latin group called Ozimatli was playing for us. At one point they yelled out "Who here fucking hates George Bush! We fucking HATE that son-of-a-bitch! Yeah?!" The whole crowd went nuts.

I'm really hoping.

[buycitgo]

26. check this out.....maybe they need some motivation to vote

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x836337

[Tsiyu]

27. Last Night on Conan O'Brian

Drew Barrymore spoke eloquently about her effort to get the young voters involved. My eighteen year old son and 20 year old daughter are campaigning heavily at their college. My son says he has changed at least four Republican young minds and he's not giving up there ( very relentless kid- heavy metal drummer). His twenty year old sister is a poster here. Yeah, there's a good reason. They don't want to get their asses sent to kill and die for Bush*'s warmongering pals.

[buycitgo]

32. I have three nieces+nephew of draft age.....did you see this?

see post number two of the thread I linked above for scary, true details

they might want to distribute this thing as a flyer

[Bush was AWOL]

28. Absolutely! I'm in that age group

People I associate with will be voting and the majority will be voting for Kerry.

[buycitgo]

33. start working your ASS off to get them to VOTE!

your age group was at about 25 per fricking CENT last time, IIRC!

!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to the local JC to wise them up for the next six weeks

they'd better realize what's at stake for them personally, and, hopefully, the country/world in general

[Mr Blond]

31. Maybe, hopefully, but the problem is...

...They're unreliable...

Johnny Pocket Rocket is more concerned over what Mary Jane Rotten Crotch thinks about about him than he is the future of this country. They're kids...All that matters is hormones and good times. Or at least that's the way it was for me and everyone I've ever known at that age.

Best to court them, educate them, help them become interested, but not count on them.

[genius]

40. Huge

[_NorCal_D_]

43. Yes

As a 19 year old, I can tell you that the war in particular has caused many young people (including myself) to wake up from their apolitical slumber.

I couldn't give a definitive estimate but you can certainly expect that young voter turnout will be significantly higher than it was in 2000.

[WI_DEM]

45. Good to hear and I know they are engaged

and could be our secret weapond in winning in Nov.