I just had to tell ya'll about this because its something that makes me crazy.  

Last year around Christmas time - the Kansas GOP sent out what I'm sure they thought was a normal everyday fundraising email.  What they mistakenly did was talk about all the great work they are doing and talked about their Vote Caging program.

This erupted into a huge thing here, here, here, and here.

BoydaBloc - a pro-Nancy Boyda blog just broke this story while going through Jim Ryun's campaign finance report disbursements.

Cross Posted from WiretapMag.Org

Friday - aka primary eve in South Carolina, a group of students with SAVE hosted their second candidate forum asking questions that concern young voters and voting rights.  Sen. John Edwards faced a crowd of young people eager to ask questions.  Given the focus this election on the uprising of young voters, young volunteers, and enthusiastic young folks SAVE is playing an important role in mandating the candidates talk about their issues.

"Edwards, born in South Carolina, focused on the economy -- South Carolina lost 6,000 jobs last month alone -- and made a straight favorite-son pitch, showing off his parents and pointing out that Clinton and Obama's feud reflect New York and Chicago politics (almost as if the state of "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, Strom Thurmond and Lee Atwater was a stranger to the culture of bare-knuckled campaigning).

"You have been forgotten too long, and I will not forget you," Edwards told the kids, urging them to be part of a "tidal wave of change." Says the NY Daily News

Last night I had an exciting opportunity to join an org called Forward Montana for their latest forum The Naked Truth.  A unique thing about Forward Montana is as a membership organization they poll their members for what issues or candidates etc.. that they are interested in.  What gets them all hot and bothered?  And one of the major things that their membership wanted FMT to address was this idea about corruption in politics.

So the Naked Truth brought together David Sirota best selling author of Hostile Takeover, David Donnelly of the Public Campaign Action Fund, and state Rep. Diane Sands who is leading the charge for publicly financed campaigns for elected judges in Montana.

And let me tell you it was some hot naked truth!

Cowards.  Candy ass.  Slacker.  Anyway you spin it - its crap.

I'm relatively young - ok I'm pretty young.  I didn't get really interested in politics until 2002 (I'd say 2000 Al lost and it took me two years to understand how to deal with that.)  

Despite never knowing what winning looks like - I opted for politics as my profession.  2006 was my first win.  Ever.  

Does anyone else really feel like we've been hosed?

X - posted this this morning to Future Majority thought I'd post it here too.
If I were technophobic MySpace would be aboard a pale horse.  

By golly they've done it again.  Myspace is now hosting its own TownMeatings for the Presidential campaigns.  Across the country MySpace will hold these townhall meetings where users can submit questions via MSIM and you can watch live as the old school consultants scramble to figure out how it all works.  I smell another underwear question coming on.  And so help me if I hear thong from anyone (including Edwards) they'll lose my vote.  I mean - there are some things about Brownie that I just don't want to know.

In 2004 we saw a dramatic increase in the 18-30 voting block voting.  Maybe it was Iraq, maybe it was about specific issues, maybe it was Howard Dean who engaged them and kept them involved through the election - who knows - but 12% more young people voted in 2004 than did in 2000.

There have been many people, several in fact, even me, who have said that there needs to be a change.  A very specific youth based movement that communicates on a youth based level is needed if we mean to make any real progress at continuing the kind of growth in my generation that we saw in 2004.

That's why I'd like to applaud the efforts of these folks.