Obama may not have clinched the nomination last night, but he continues to ride a wave of youth support. Last night young voters in Ohio chose him 61 to 35 percent over Sen. Clinton. In Texas, he won the youth vote 58 – 42 percent. The youth vote is up in every contest thus far – sometimes double, triple, and even quadruple the levels we saw in 2004. In most states, the number of young voters participating in the Democratic contest outnumbers their Republican peers 2 – 1. Obama is riding this wave – and certainly he is amplifying it – but he did not create it.

We’ve talked about the Millennials and about the conservative youth factory. Now it’s time to take a look at the last five years and see just how Millennials altered the playing field to match their conservative counterpart. This is a Cliff's Notes version, to be sure, as this post covers in 1000 words what takes three chapters to describe in my book.

I would argue that the growth of the progressive youth movement thus far has come in two stages.

The first stage took place between 2003 and 2004. At that time, there was very little of significance happening in youth organizing. Rock the Vote was dead as a field organization and had gradually devolved into a brand name and media campaign. It also had a very mixed reputation among young people, particularly activists. The College Democrats had no budget and little appeal outside of their small niche of future-insiders, and the Young Democrats faced similar credibility problems and a lack of financial resources. Progressive youth organizing – in the electoral sense – was a barren field, but there were many Millennials (and some tail-end Gen Xers) who were anti-war, anti-Bush, and itching to make a difference.

At the same time, a number of high-level Democratic donors were looking for fresh ways to impact the Presidential race. The youth organizing field was wide open. No party consultants or operatives would touch the youth vote with a ten foot pole (the youth vote was fools gold, it never panned out), and weakened youth institutions meant there would be little in the way of turf wars (or so they thought). Howard Dean’s campaign, which seemed to energize young voters, offered proof that it was possible to reach young people, and donors were willing to give anything new a shot. It was a very entrepreneurial, improvisational time. The donors were willing to spend a lot of cash to try new things, and as a result, many organizations and outlandish strategies that might never have found funding otherwise were suddenly awash in cash.

In 2003 and 2004, supported largely by the Lewis and Rappaport families, groups like Music for America, Punk Voter, The Oregon Bus Project, Forward Montana, The League of Young Voters, The National Hip Hop Political Convention, Drinking Liberally, and many more got their start. Within the regular party infrastructure, the Young Democrats took advantage of this new “venture philanthropy” money in youth organizing and rebooted their operation.

On the whole, the organizations of the first stage of the [dot] Org Boom, as disparate as they were, had two things in common: they worked hard to push the idea that peer to peer organizing was the gold standard for reaching young voters; and they understood that culture was an ally and culturally relevant programming was the key to reaching previously apathetic/disenfranchised young people. This was the innovation at the time (now fast becoming conventional wisdom), but in reality it was a return to an older kind of politics that relied upon, and built, political and cultural communities. On a theoretical level, it was an attempt to reverse many of the trends observed by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone.

These tactics were a success. The youth vote increased for the first time in over a decade, rising from 40% in 2000 to 49%. In swing states targeted by the new progressive youth organizations, turnout among young voters reached as high as 64% (almost on par with the rest of the electorate). Young voters also voted for John Kerry, the Democratic candidate (though the vote could just as easily be characterized as “anti-Bush”), a distinct improvement from 2000, when Gore and Bush nearly split the youth vote.

Despite these successes, Kerry’s loss to Bush stung donors, and in the early months of 2005 youth organizers experienced a mini-bust as those they relied upon or support reassessed their giving strategies. Many groups lost their funding or saw it scaled back dramatically in the early months, but eventually the money began to flow once more and new players entered the field that. Among donors, the Rappaport and Lewis families were joined by the Democracy Alliance and the Strykers. Institutions that are now mainstays of the movement – like Campus Progress and Young People For – emerged in 2005, as did new state-based groups like New Era Colorado.

Whereas 2003 and 2004 were years of experimentation, 2005 and 2006 saw specialization, professionalization, and sustainability became the new mantras of progressive youth organizers. Those who were left standing after 2004, and the new players who were still emerging, divvied up the youth movement into specialized niches, or “core competencies”: electoral, leadership training, idea generation, etc. Those who were previously outsiders and novices slowly became insiders and professionals. Institutions became more accountable - internally and to their donors - and worked to build new sources of funds so as not to rely solely on the kindness of millionaires. It was in these years that movement started to grow up.

And the movement continued to rack up successes. Campus Progress has established progressive newspapers and magazines on dozens of campuses. Young People For has trained hundreds of new activists on college campuses, with a focus on young people of color and underserved communities. Organizations like the League have had victories passing legislation beneficial to young voters in the states, while groups like the Roosevelt Institution and DMI Scholars are teaching young people how to write progressive policy. Just as conservatives have a leadership pipeline to develop their own talent, so too do progressives now have a similar inrastructure to move young people into leadership positions in the progressive movement.

At the ballot box, thanks in large part to the peer to peer organizing of organizations like the Young Democrats, The League, Forward Montana and the Oregon Bus Project, young voters continued to vote Democratic in the 2006 elections – this time by a 60 – 38 percent margin, according to CNN exit polls. Young voters were crucial in the election of Jim Webb and Jon Tester, and helped turn the Senate blue.

This [dot] Org Boom is the source of the surging youth vote that we’ve seen in the Democratic primary contest. It harnessed the power of Millennials early on, and created a progressive culture and infrastructure to channel their activism. Right now, Sen. Obama’s campaign is riding that youth wave – and vastly amplifying it – but he did not create it, and it will be here long after his campaign is gone, be that 8 months or 8 years from now. This movement is far from perfect, though, and this revolution in youth organizing far from complete. The first and second stages of this movement are done, and we’re now in a new, third stage. There are many areas where we still lag woefully behind, and if the Democratic Party is to make the most of its current advantage among young voters, and build a future progressive majority into the 21st century, there is still much work to be done.

That’s what we’ll talk about tomorrow.