Can’t take your eyes off this year’s election coverage? Are you tired of reading the same ‘ole rhetoric on the so -called “Youthquake?” Would you jump at an opportunity to report on the 2008 election and how it impacts your community? If you’ve answered YES, then we want to hear from you!

Rock the Vote in partnership with WireTap magazine is searching for aspiring or established reporters for Rock the Trail. Sponsored by AT&T, Rock the Trail will capture today’s politics through the eyes and in the words of young voters. Rock the Trail reporters will deliver insightful and compelling blogs, articles and videos from the communities they live in, reporting on young people’s top issues such as jobs, the economy and college affordability. Content will be posted on http://www.rockthevote.com, http://www.wiretapmag.org , http://www.BET.com, and will also be available for viewing on AT&T mobile phones. In addition, we will be working with the washingtonpost.com to contribute unique perspectives complementary to the site’s vast coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Entries will be judged by an advisory panel of distinguished journalists including: Jeff Chang, award-winning author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, Sian-Pierre Regis, producer, BET News, Peter Rothberg, associate publisher, The Nation magazine and Jose Antonio Vargas, political feature writer, The Washington Post. Individuals will be chosen based on the creativity and originality of his or her application, and ability to write in a clear, concise manner.

Rock the Trail reporters will be paid a monthly stipend and supplied with a laptop, cell phone and video camera to rock the 2008 campaign trail. Reporters will interview candidates, elected officials, campaigners, young voters and Rock the Vote artists discussing everything from the Presidential race to mayoral elections and anything in between.

So, if you’re a U.S. citizen between the ages of 18-29 and interested in reporting on one of the most exciting times in U.S. politics, please click here to complete an application by May 7th (not a minute after 11:59pm.)

Rock the Trail is part of a yearlong alliance between AT&T and Rock the Vote to engage young people in the democratic process by bringing the election to them through their mobile phones.

Additional Information:

• Entry Guidelines
• Online Application Form

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Over the last few days I have been asked why I am fighting to reinstate the purged young Obama delegate candidates when a good percentage of the allowed candidates are youth. If the only issue at hand were Arizona’s youth representation goal (though it does not look like it will be reached), such an effort might not be necessary, but the youth representation goal is not the only issue.

Youth leaders were assured by the Obama campaign that young delegate candidates would not be purged barring specific concerns about an individual candidate. With that assurance, youth leaders, myself included, encouraged many of the young activists that had been crucial to Obama garnering 59% of the 18-29 vote to run for delegate. We passed on that assurance to these potential candidates, they filed their candidacy papers, and they looked toward the delegate election with excitement and anticipation. Candidate trainings were held, candidacy groups were formed on social networks, and state committee voters were contacted.

Then two weeks before the election they had been preparing for, a majority of them were told, in a vague and cryptic email, that they in fact would not be allowed the opportunity to run. No specific reasons were conveyed to them about why they could not run, and confusion set in, wondering why those assurances that emboldened them to run had dissipated.

When a campaign makes assurances that are then reneged, they run the risk of causing young activists to be wary of any future pledges or promises that are made. It is important that the very few commitments made to youth are actually kept.

These young candidates put themselves out there to run only to be rejected, not knowing why they were struck while others are allowed to run. If they knew how the campaign made their selections, they could possibly learn what to do differently to improve their chances. Even then, however, young activists may feel unappreciated, or guilty because the campaign does not think they put in enough effort to just have the opportunity to run for delegate. But this is not the most harmful consequence. These activists are smart, and they have started to think about the situation. They realize that with the large number of candidates for delegate the campaign did not look at their name and say “these are the reasons this person should be purged.” They were not choosing who to purge, but who they were going to allow to run. If they were specifically choosing who can run, the people that are allowed to run must be individually known to them. Then it hits them: the people that are accepted are most likely to be personal friends of the decision-makers or political favors. No matter how much effort they put into the campaign, they are not insiders, the establishment, or members of the exclusive club. They never had a chance, especially if they were working in rural areas that prevent them from getting buddy-buddy with those insiders. Next time, they won’t even bother trying.

How can we convince young activists to run for delegate in four years when this happens? Can we assure them that this year they will be allowed to run? Of course not. They know better than to trust that assurance. They have already felt the rejection that comes after getting their hopes up of running for delegate. It won’t be easy to get them take that risk again.

Disclaimer: Although I was one of the candidates that was purged, I am not asking for my personal reinstatement nor will I run if reinstated in order to prevent this effort from being dismissed as being a personal fight for my candidacy.

• 1 Comment

Anya Kamenetz’s column on Yahoo Finance entitled “The Big Issues for Young Voters” has been getting slaughtered in the article’s comments. Here are a selection of negative comments that illustrate the perceptions of young voters by the finance-page demographic. All spelling is left in context.

Socialists Rock! Oh yeah and John McCain is still breathing… hey I could do unbiased journalism too…. Wake up yahoo! This is a personal finance page (read: wealthier people who rather see people like this roasting on a spit before seeing their taxes go up to support those who dont know what responsibility is).. Get with the program.

the “youth vote”….the most over rated thing since paris hilton.

no, no, no. you must stop drinking the Democratic/socialist koolaid and start laying responsibility at he feet of the younger generation! when i attended college i worked 30 hours a week and took a full workload of glasses while the spoiled kids joined frats and partied all night long. what really needs to happen is kids need to be required (in high school) to take several classes in personal finance to understand how to handle their finances and not just make a plan to move back in with mom and pop when things go to hell and they saddle up a mountain of credit card debt. i am sick and tired of the dems telling voters the government has let them down. are you kidding me?? i have never taken out an ARM and have always lived way below my means, avoiding the financial ruin so many Americans face today. blaming the government is a cop out. the irresponsible all want the responsible homeowner and taxpayer to bail them out! Obama and Clinton are selling a socialist plan they say people are entitled to, but i say you get what you work for, so the younger generation needs to get to work and act fiscally responsible, which our role model government is not inclined to do! wake up and smell the roses Anya!

I don’t even know where to start. For those that don’t know, Anya got her start with a book she wrote about all of Generation Debt’s problems. Great, so we’ve established that as a college student she could put a long report together saying things suck out there. Now, for those of you that haven’t read the book, I saved you the trouble. As for this article, it is much worse because Anya has a degree in journalism, not economics and surely not finance, at least I hope not because it would only be a testament to how bad education has gotten. She states all the problems we have but never has a decent solution. She wants more money in the GI Bill and for colleges. Great, the GI Bill helps about 1% of those going to college and the government giving more to colleges will just result in more domes being built for sports. That’s brilliant. Next idea, let’s discuss social healthcare that we can’t afford as a society and will never get. She writes about young voters as though inexperienced young people have a clue what is waiting for them outside of college. If they did, they would not go to college and wrack up countless thousands in debt. She and her like are the problem young people are faced with. At one point she says our grandparents were better off with manufacturing jobs and pensions, but then she turns and says that the children of tomorrow can’t have pensions and good paying jobs because we have to abide by free trade laws. Anya obviously doesn’t even know why she is saying that because she just made the argument against free trade. I do not wonder how Anya got the position writing for Yahoo. What I wonder is how she keeps it with crap like this!

Anya, your musings on politics are amatuerish. The entire purpose of this column was simply to plug your awful book, wasn’t it?.. I ask Yahoo! Finance, what in the world were you thinking in hiring this girl? P.S. Anya you need to wear more makeup.. I can still see the bags under your eyes..

The much-vaunted “youth vote” comes up every election cycle, yet the same thing always happens: the youth have virtually no impact on the result. Obviously, this article is a complete disaster from start to end. Does she honestly believe Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and the national debt will ever be brought “into balance”? And given the massive financial problems facing this country, sending more people to college to obtain largely worthless degrees is moronic to say the least. She is obviously much better suited to write for college newspapers and free city magazines than a serious Yahoo Finance column (Rock The Vote? “Declaration of Interdependence”???? How can anyone take this buffoon seriously?)

Don’t worry readers, not all young people are this ridiculous . . . but at least she’s cute and went to Yale!

Generation Y members need to come up with their own opinions instead of copying the group on Gootube or Digg. They are such heavy evangelists of group thinking, election results R now decided by only 1 or 2 people high up in the media corporations.

Young people are are rocking the vote and I wish they wouldn’t. It’s bad enough the more experienced aging population sucks at picking politicians (Democrat and Republican)… now we have an entire generation of Americans raised by television who are picking our politicians. Contrary to this article, our young people don’t know what the issues are. They don’t know how to read, that’s why our newspapers are failing and picture-based gossip magazines like “IN TOUCH” are thriving. All they know is what the advertisements are telling them the issues are.

These negative comments are overwhelmingly dominated by McCarthy-esque name-calling, throwing around the labels Socialist, Communist, Leninist, Marxist, Soviet, etc. They also have mastered the ad hominem fallacy with demeaning comments such as “Anya you need to wear more makeup.. I can still see the bags under your eyes..” and “at least she’s cute and went to Yale!” And for commenters that claim young people are uninformed and are single-minded, they sure don’t want to have to see any opinions that contradict their currently-held beliefs: “This is a personal finance page (read: wealthier people who rather see people like this roasting on a spit before seeing their taxes go up to support those who dont know what responsibility is).. Get with the program.”

From the comments we can see their thoughts on young voters. For me the most offensive comment was “Young people are are rocking the vote and I wish they wouldn’t…They don’t know how to read, that’s why our newspapers are failing and picture-based gossip magazines like “IN TOUCH” are thriving. All they know is what the advertisements are telling them the issues are.” Seriously, to use the parlance of the internet, WTF!?! Young people don’t know how to read and we shouldn’t vote. Our minds have been brainwashed by advertising and we can’t think for ourselves. Apparently they haven’t looked at all the research showing that young people are the LEAST affected by advertising and MOST skeptical of it. Newspaper readership is falling because more Americans across the board are going online for their news, not because of generational illiteracy.

From these sentiments we can see the kind of message we as young voters need to send: Our generation is engaged and informed, and we will stand up for our ideas and beliefs despite the myriad systemic obstacles previous generations have put in our way.

• 2 Comments