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 more 18-to-30 years olds to the polls this November, it seemed like cause for celebration for 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 suffused by entertainment news, when even suburban youngsters take their cues from gansta rappers like 50 Cent, it seems likely that the involvement of such performers 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 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 each in 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 drug laws. Plans call for the activity to continue with additional summits in Detroit, Columbus, Ohio, New Orleans, and the Bronx, leading to gatherings July 26 during the Democratic National Convention in Boston and August 30 during the start of 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 Benjamin Chavis, a civil rights veteran and former NAACP president, who serves as president/CEO of the nonprofit Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. Although total numbers have yet to be calculated for the number of young people registered by the network, "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."

If the past is any indication, though, efforts like Rock the Vote — which claims credit for registering more than three million new voters since its inception in 1990 — have not even contained the decline in youth voting caused by larger and more pervasive trends. Asked about these kind of campaigns, Harvard’s Tom Patterson says, "I think they make a difference, but not much of a difference." Certainly, Kerry will face a difficult road in fighting his far-better financed Republican opponent, and the well-greased machinery of the Republican attack apparatus.

Meanwhile, the scrappier Punkvoter effort — backed by a tour with such acts as NOFX, Alkaline Trio, Authority Zero, and Jello Biafra — hopes to mobilize more than 500,000 youth as one voice. "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 the importance of the thin margin of victory in swing states, the League of Independent Voters emphasizes 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 over the country, fostering a national network of locally driven, multi-issue, multi-constituency progressive voter blocs. Certainly, liberalism has been on the wane even in the Democratic Party for years, and reversing this will require nothing less than energetic and sustained effort. And as Matthew Jerzyk notes, the successful mobilization of voters on Providence’s South Side — a fraction of one part of a medium-sized city — required hundreds of volunteers in 2002.

When it comes to the 2004 presidential election, what happens in Iraq over the next five months is obviously one of the big questions. There are no guarantees, of course, but the extent of the youth vote just might be another.

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