E-Mail This Article to a Friend Will young voters deliver for Kerry? (continued)

WHEN THE Hip-Hop Summit Action Network teamed up with World Wrestling Entertainment, in September 2003, with a nonpartisan plan to bring two million 18- to 30-years-olds to the polls this November, it seemed like cause for celebration among civic boosters and pop-culture aficionados. As WWE chairman Vince McMahon told the National Press Club, according to a statement by the League of Women Voters, "Both WWE and hip-hop appeal to a broad cross-section of young Americans. I can only imagine what the combination of sports entertainment and hip-hop will do to attract the interest of younger voters in the 2004 election, now that we have several months in which to reach them. Who will these people vote for? I would urge all the political parties and candidates to take the 18-to-30-year-old vote seriously in 2004."

On the surface, such pairings make plenty of practical sense. In an age saturated with entertainment news, when even suburban youngsters take their cues from gansta rappers like 50 Cent, it seems likely that the involvement of performers such as Jay Z, LL Cool J, P. Diddy, and Naz, among others, could encourage more young people to vote. As rap impresario Russell Simmons, chairman of the nonprofit Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (www.hsan.org), told the Village Voice, "When Puffy says register to vote, maybe people will do it. The most important thing we gotta do is make it cool to show up at the rallies, make it in style to pay attention."

HSAN claims credit for registering tens of thousands of young people during a string of hip-hop summits across the country, marshaling more than 60,000 for a protest in New York against that state’s stringent Rockefeller-era drug laws. Plans call for additional summits in Detroit, Columbus, Ohio, New Orleans, and the Bronx, culminating in gatherings on July 26 during the Democratic National Convention, in Boston, and on August 30 during the Republican National Convention, in New York.

"What we have found is that there is a reservoir of high energy, high enthusiasm among young people, once they’re encouraged to participate," says HSAN president and CEO Benjamin Chavis, a civil-rights veteran and former NAACP president. The total number of young people registered by the network has yet to be calculated, but Chavis remains optimistic: "Hopefully, with the combined efforts of all the groups working on this in 2004, we’ll see one of the largest youth turnouts in voter history."

Such an outpouring, combined with a wider political shift away from the policies of the Bush administration, could prove decisive in November. The Wall Street Journal reported in a June 3 story on Take Back America, a gathering of 2000 liberal activists in Washington, DC, last week, that those who wish to see the Republicans unseated may have cause for hope. "Recent polls show that more Americans are calling themselves ‘liberal’ — a term that had been considered something of an epithet — and fewer are identifying themselves as ‘conservative.’ Liberal groups, from the National Organization for Women to MoveOn.org, are enjoying a big fundraising surge. The flagship publication of the left, the Nation, claims to have captured the highest circulation of any weekly political magazine."

Still, judging by the past, efforts like Rock the Vote — which claims credit for registering more than three million new voters since its inception in 1990 — have not been able to arrest the overall decline in youth voting caused by larger and more pervasive trends. Asked about the success of youth-centered voter drives, Harvard’s Patterson says, "I think they make a difference, but not much of a difference." Although it stands to reason that Democrats will benefit from the growth of such efforts, Kerry will face a difficult road fighting the far-better-financed Republican attack machine.

Meanwhile, the scrappier and flagrantly anti-Bush Punkvoter campaign — backed by a tour with such acts as NOFX, Alkaline Trio, Authority Zero, and Jello Biafra — hopes to mobilize more than 500,000 youth. "The progressive principles that parallel the punk movement’s guiding strength drive Punkvoter," according to www.punkvoter.com. "This is the time for the punk scene to unite around issues that we all care about and that we have all sung about. We must all stand together as one voice in shaping the future of our country. This is not about who is a sellout, who is too hardcore, or who is from the West Coast, etc.... This is about getting everyone to mobilize as a block [sic] of concerned voters. Punk bands, punk labels, and punk fans must form a union against the chaotic policies George W. Bush has put in place. He must be exposed."

Noting that the margin of victory in swing states will probably be extremely thin, the League of Independent Voters embraces a similarly grassroots strategy. Using www.indyvoter.org as a portal, the organization wants to facilitate the creation of local online-offline progressive voter guides across the country, fostering a national network of locally driven, multi-issue, multi-constituency progressive voter blocs. Short-term plans include hiring organizers in swing states and staging a national convention in Ohio on July 16–18.

The outcome of the 2004 presidential election will undoubtedly depend on what happens in Iraq over the next five months. There are no guarantees, of course, but it might just depend on the extent of the youth vote as well.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com