New Tools

There's always a lot happening here at NDN, so in case you missed anything, here's what we've been up to in the last week:

A Stimulus for the Long Run - Post-election, Congress will head back to Washington to consider another stimulus package. NDN Globalization Initiative Chair Dr. Robert Shapiro and Green Project Director Michael Moynihan have been weighing in on the need to create a package that jumpstarts the economy now and helps ensure future prosperity by working to create a low-carbon economy. In a recent essay, Shapiro argued for a “Stimulus for the Long Run” that invests in clean infrastructure, worker training, and technology. In a separate memo, Moynihan also made the case for Accelerating the Development of a 21st Century Economy: Investing in Clean Infrastructure. The bottom line: Congress has a limited amount of money to spend on a stimulus.

Election Forum with Joe Trippi and Simon Rosenberg - Yesterday, NDN hosted a special lunchtime Election Forum with NDN President Simon Rosenberg and Internet pioneer, top political strategist and New Politics Institute fellow Joe Trippi. Joe and Simon looked at this remarkable election cycle and also beyond November 4 to the next Administration. For more information and photos from the event, please click here.

NDN Countdown to Election 2008 - With less than a week to go before Election Day, the NDN team continued to weigh in on issues ranging from swinging poll numbers to donation-fueled shopping sprees to early voting. With the media reporting U.S. Sen. Barack Obama with anywhere from a double-digit to a single-digit lead over U.S. Sen. John McCain, Simon asked, "Is McCain Playing to Win?"

Simon's essay echoes what he and the NDN team have been saying for several weeks: we may see an uptick in McCain's numbers as the race enters the final days, but that's because the Arizona senator is gaining ground he already should have held. It's not a sign of McCain's strength; rather, it's a sign of his weakness and disappointing campaign that many in the GOP base are only now coming home. For more on the final days of the campaign, check out this report from yesterday's Newsday, which quotes Simon.

Simon also predicted that increasingly, we will start to hear quiet talk of realignment, blowout, rout, coattails and a new political era. If the trends continue, we are headed toward a true blowout with the top of the Democratic ticket getting its highest vote share since 1964, Democrats having more ideological control of Washington since the mid 1960s and Democrats having the makings of a new very 21st century majority coalition they could ride for the next 30-40 years of politics.

And the other big news last week? What about Gov. Sarah Palin slapping her hockey Mom image right out of the rink by spending $150,000 on designer clothes and make up? Chalk it up the Republicans’ being completely out of touch with the economic struggles of everyday people. Melissa also took a look at an interview Palin did with James Dobson, the immensley popular leader of “Focus on the Family.” While Palin has apologized for some of her more divisive rhetoric as of late, she played to Dobson’s audience in this interview, even seeming to contradict McCain's more moderate stances on several issues, including stem cell research, choice and gay marriage. Is Palin thinking conservative base in 2012?

Back to the here-and-now, Andres Ramirez, Vice President of Hispanic Programs, spent the week focusing on the subject of early voting. With one in three registered voters expected to cast their ballots before November 4, Andres wrote about the record-breaking numbers of early voters, how many of those voters are experiencing very long waits to vote and efforts to prevent people from voting or purge newly registered voters from the rolls.

Keep People in Their Homes - For more than a month, NDN has been arguing that any government response to the financial crisis must include a central provision to keep people in their homes. Momentum to do just that grew last week, as FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair testified before Congress and presented a proposal to keep people in their homes, and the New York Times editorialized on the issue. The Washington Post reported that Bair’s proposal received a warm reception from lawmakers, a welcome sign that the federal government will soon provide necessary leadership in this effort. For more on NDN’s Keep People in Their Homes effort, click here.

Other NDN Thinking - There are no lack of victims from the meltdown of the financial markets and the oncoming economic recession. Will moving toward a low-carbon future, a top priority for NDN, be one of them? Our answer is “no.” Jake Berliner argued that Energy Reform Can Be an Economic Boon. Green Project Director Moynihan further buttressed Jake’s arguments in his essay, Climate Change: Next Steps in a Troubled Economy. Zuraya Tapia-Alfaro looked at Barack Obama’s latest Spanish-language ad about restoring the “American Dream,” following other Spanish-language TV and radio ads on education, health care, taxes, and more. She also wrote about immigration in the presidential race and how the next president can discuss immigration reform using an economic narrative during this time of economic crisis.

New Tools Feature: Go Mobile - In last week's New Tools Feature, TXT 2 GOTV, I highlighted a new study that shows the great bang-for-the-buck efficacy of text-based get-out-the-vote campaigns, which, on average, cost only $1.56 per vote. To learn more about using SMS messaging effectively, be sure to read our New Politics Institute's New Tools paper, Go Mobile Now. While texting has already had a real, measurable effect in this election cycle, and will be critical to getting out key voting blocs next Tuesday, the true potential of mobile-powered politics has yet to be tapped.

NDN Breaking Through - The new VIBE Magazine hit shelves last week. For the first time in its 15-year history, VIBE endorsed a candidate this month. Simon is quoted in the cover story, "The Tipping Point," about race in American politics and the historic implications of the rise of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

Simon also provided analysis of the election in the Independent, Reuters (and subsequently on Michael Moore's blog), and in two featured posts on the Huffington Post (here and here). His election commentary also aired on radio stations across the country, and he was featured on WAMU's "Power Breakfast": you can listen to the segment here:

A new study released yesterday from the New Voters Project and CREEDO Mobile found that "text message reminders sent to young voters on Super Tuesday increased turnout by 4.6 percentage points among the targeted population." This means that text messaging is by far the most cost-effective GOTV technique:

The bang-for-the-buck factor makes texting an attractive option for political campaigns. However, campaigns are not the only ones using texts to get out the vote; a number of voter groups, including the New Voters Project, are running GOTV text campaigns. CREEDO Mobile has also set up a Web site, textoutthevote.com, which lets you add the mobile numbers of your friends and family and then automatically sends them a customized reminder to vote on election day - give it a try, it's easy and free.

As this study shows, mobile technology is becoming an increasingly powerful force in the politics of the 21st century. To learn more about using SMS messaging effectively, be sure to read our New Politics Institute's New Tools paper, Go Mobile Now. Texting has already had a real, measurable effect in this election cycle, and will be critical to getting out key voting blocs on election day, but the true potential of mobile-powered politics has yet to be tapped.

In Tracy's post today, she includes this powerful ad that aired after the presidential debate last night:

The ad was created through a service called SaysMe.tv. Here is the description of the service from their site:

SaysMe.tv is a website that gives individuals the opportunity to use TV to make an enormous difference in their politics, in their local community... and beyond. The 2008 election is just around the corner and the Internet has enabled bloggers of every affiliation to become as powerful in political circles as candidates, journalists and pundits. SaysMe.tv wants to further empower citizens by letting them make their voices heard on TV as well as the Internet. Sign up for SaysMe.tv, choose an ad featuring your candidate or issue of choice, select a network, and personalize your ad. With just a few simple clicks, you can put an ad on TV! Then you can distribute or embed your personalized ads anywhere on the Internet.

I think this may have been the most emotionally effective ad I've seen in this entire election cycle, and it was created by an ordinary person with a video camera. I think that is a truly amazing thing, and a real vindication and confirmation of what we've been saying about Reimagining Video and the End of Broadcast. This is truly people-powered politics at its best.

With voter registration deadlines fast approaching in many states, a final push to register new voters is underway. Most notably, MySpace has partnered with the four largest nonpartisan voter registration groups in the country to launch a voter registration contest, the Ultimate College Bowl.

It works like this: students sign up and are given the embed code for the easy-to-use registration widget, which they then embed in their web sites, myspace pages, or blogs, just like I've done at the bottom of this post. The college that registers the most new voters wins a free concert at their school by Death Cab For Cutie, and the school that registers the largest percentage of their students wins a concert by the Decemberists. The students that personally register the most people can also win scholarships or Guitar Hero 2 (as a recent college graduate, I will admit that I would still be very happy to win any of these prizes).

In general, the use of technology to encourage young people to participate in politics is becoming increasingly prevalent and effective. Though our outdated and inconvenient voting system is set up in a way that discourages young people from voting (a fact which is much more responsible for low youth turnout than our purported "apathy" or "unpredictability"), we can now register in ways that fit our lifestyles - through social networking sites, cell phones, and even videogames (Rock the Vote just came out with a registration form request feature for the Xbox 360).

The results are impressive: the Los Angeles Times reports that Rock the Vote has registered 2.3 million voters this year, more than twice as many people as in 2004. Turnout among those under 30 also increased by 9% from 2000 to 2004, more than twice the increase of any other age group. Technology has had a central role to play in this trend; for example, Rock the Vote reports that "voting rates increase 4% when young people receive a text message reminding them to vote."

The Millennial vote has the power to swing this election. As such, it is incredibly important for the political world to engage them directly. To learn more, read our New Politics Institute paper, Leverage Social Networks, as well as our revealing report about The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation.

This election cycle, many people have complained that the traditional media has not been doing its job all that well. The general complaint is that instead of giving voters the information they need to make informed and intelligent decisions, the ratings-driven mainstream media increasingly focuses on distractions and sound bites. Some have called for the reform of our traditional media; others have simply bypassed it.

We believe in engaging the non-traditional media. Here are a few of our new-media mentions from the past week:

DailyKos, The Latino Journal, and The South Chicagoan referenced our recent polls of Hispanic voters in key battleground states.

Simon and Rob Shapiro are featured in The American Prospect’s blog, Tapped, as well as Biodun Iginla’s BBC weblog, for their joint statement, “Keep People in Their Homes.” Shapiro also appears in Campaign for America’s Future.

Finally, Michael Moynihan, Director of NDN’s Green Project, has posts in The Huffington Post and Gristmill.

At midnight last night, Twitter launched the first specialized section of their site, election.twitter.com. According to the New York Times, below a box that asks "what do you think?" is

"a constantly scrolling display of the thoughts (called "tweets" in Twitterspeak) of other Twitter users. These include all the tweets entered on the election page as well as those entered in any other part of the service with obvious election-related phrases, such as ‘Palin.'"

Already this morning, there are about 60 posts per minute on the election page. If the debate actually happens tonight (assuming there are no more crazy hail-mary moves from the McCain campaign), expect the page to be flooded with tweets; the company's co-founder says that the service saw "off-the-charts messages per second during the acceptance speeches" of the political conventions. Interestingly, the general public opinion on the election page seems to be pretty pro-Obama, which may reflect the mobile-user political trends I mentioned last week.

Twitter represents a fascinating intersection of different new media; it is like a social networking site, a blog, and a mobile service all rolled into one. To learn more about these tools and how they are fundamentally altering politics in the 21^st century, we encourage you to read our New Policy Institute's New Tools Campaign papers, Go Mobile, Leverage Social Networks and Engage the Blogs.

You can also sign up to follow NDN on Twitter and receive tweets on all of our latest thinking.

Hoy, el centro de investigación llamado The New Policy Institute, un filial de NDN sin fin de lucro y no-partidario, lanzó una campaña para motivar a ciudadanos Hispanohablantes a votar este Noviembre.

La campaña se llama Adelante. Comienza esta semana con anuncios a punto de saturación del mercado de radio en Colorado, y con una página de Internet, www.adelante08.org. La campaña hará dos cosas: por un lado ayudará a motivar al público a votar y por otro lado explicará el proceso para votar, incluyendo información sobre votación temprana y votación ausente. Se espera que gran parte del público serán Hispanos que van a votar por primera vez. La primera fase de la campaña comienza hoy en Colorado. Entre hoy y el día de las elecciones, Adelante lanzará cientos de anuncios en Denver (estaciones KBNO, KXPX, KJMN y KMXA), Colorado Springs/Pueblo (estaciones KNKN y KRYE), y en Fort Collins/Greeley (estación KGRE). Para escuchar el primer anuncio, “Acuérdate”, o leer el guión del anuncio y la traducción al Inglés, haga clic aquí.

Para más información sobre el electorado en los Estados Unidos, vea el reporte recientemente publicado por NDN, Hispanics Rising II. Durante muchos años, NDN y sus filiales han luchado para asegurarse de que la voz de la comunidad creciente de Latinos sea escuchada dentro del gran debate que informa a la democracia Estadounidense. Esta campaña es el capítulo mas reciente dentro de este esfuerzo de muchos años.

-- Guión del anuncio --

Español:

MUJER: ¿Qué tan lejos hemos llegado?
HOMBRE: Acuérdate de Roberto Clemente.
MUJER: De la misma Selena.
HOMBRE: O de César Chávez.
MUJER: Sí, hemos llegado muy lejos, pero no podemos vivir de glorias pasadas.
HOMBRE: Este año, de ti depende decidir si nos quedamos hasta donde hemos llegado o seguimos avanzando.
MUJER: Sigue adelante y vota.

Mensaje pagado por Adelante, NPI y el Tides Center.

Every year the United States takes a time out from September 15-October 15 to recognize the contributions of Hispanics in the United States as part of Hispanic Heritage Month. Hispanics are now recognized as the largest minority in the U.S. - the Census estimates that by 2042 one in four persons will be of Hispanic origin. As this year's Hispanic Heritage Month kicked off this week, it becomes clear that an unprecedented number of Latino voters could decide this year's election, Latinos are increasingly represented in government and industry, Latinos are a growing force in the media - as evidenced by the launch of shows like "Agenda" and "Al Punto" on Spanish language networks, and Hispanics are also becoming web and technology users in rapidly growing numbers.

For these reasons and more, the Pew Hispanic Center reported this week on a survey it conducted on the overall state of Latinos. The report reflects how Hispanics are bearing much of the current economic crisis, combined with suffering increased instances of discrimination.

Half (50%) of all Latinos overall (native and foreign born) say that the situation of Latinos in this country is worse now than it was a year ago, according to this nationwide survey of 2,015 Hispanic adults (higher than the average for non-latinos). Fully 63% of Latino immigrants say that the situation of Latinos has worsened over the past year. In 2007, just 42% of all adult Hispanic immigrants - and just 33% of all Hispanic adults - said the same thing. These increasingly downbeat assessments come at a time when the Hispanic community in this country--numbering approximately 46 million, or 15.4% of the total U.S. population--has been hit the hardest by rising unemployment.

Due mainly to the crisis in the housing and construction industry, the unemployment rate for Hispanics in the U.S. rose to 7.3% in the first quarter of 2008, well above the 4.7% rate for all non-Hispanics, and well above the 6.1% rate for Hispanics during the same period last year. As recently as the end of 2006, the gap between those two rates had shrunk to an historic low of 0.5 percentage points--4.9% for Latinos compared with 4.4% for non-Latinos, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The spike in Hispanic unemployment has hit immigrants especially hard. For the first time since 2003, the unemployment rate for Latinos not born in the United States was higher, at 7.5 percent, than the rate for native-born Latinos, at 6.9 percent, the report found. Latinos make up 14.2% of the U.S. labor force, or roughly 22 million people.

In addition to the economy, issues like immigration, access to health care, and discrimination continue to be of concern to Hispanics and to Hispanic voters. In the Pew survey, one-in-ten Hispanic adults - native-born U.S. citizens (8%) and immigrants (10%) alike - report that in the past year the police or other authorities have stopped them and asked them about their immigration status. Some Latinos are xperiencing other difficulties because of their ethnicity. One-in-seven(15%)say that they have had trouble in the past year finding or keeping a job because they are Latino. One-in-ten (10%) report the same about finding or keeping housing.

On the question of immigration enforcement, the Pew Center's research demonstrates the same data NDN found through our polling on immigration, released last week. Latinos disapprove of current enforcement-only measures - more than four-in-five Hispanics (81%) say that immigration enforcement should be left mainly to the federal authorities rather than the local police and 76% disapprove of workplace raids. Two-thirds (68%) of Latinos who worry a lot that they or someone close to them may be deported say that Latinos' situation in the country today is worse than it was a year ago, as do 63% of Latinos who have experienced job difficulties because of their ethnicity and 71% of Latinos who report housing difficulties because of their ethnicity.

Most Hispanics in the U.S. are native born, i.e., U.S. citizens legally not susceptible to deportation, therefore the fact that most Hispanics worry about raids, immigration, and even facing possible deportation reflects how the existing reckless "enforcement-only" policies are impacting not only foreign Hispanics, but U.S. citizens.

NDN has a history writing and speaking about the Hispanic community as one of the great American demographic stories of the 21st century, recognizing that it will be hard for any political party to build a 21st century political majority without this fast-growing electorate. Hispanics have become one of the most volatile and contested swing voting blocs in American politics, and they are responding to this attention. As reported in Hispanics Rising II, an analysis of the Hispanic electorate and their motivation, Hispanic immigrants are becoming increasingly involved, as reflected by the data released this week by the Immigration Policy Center, demonstrating a spike in citizenship applications. Immigrants want to be U.S. citizens, they want to apply for citizenship, often having to overcome virtually impossible obstacles to be able to pay the obscenely high application filing fees.

Therefore, political candidates will do well to pay attention to the many challenges facing Hispanics today. At the onset of Hispanic Heritage Month this week, both Presidential candidates released statements praising Hispanics' contributions to American society and their military service. The difference between the two statements is that Barack Obama also called for comprehensive immigration reform. On the other hand, John McCain didn't mention it. This is curious because polling for the last 3 or 4 years, including the latest polls conducted by NDN, consistently shows that immigration is of top concern for Hispanic voters.

The New York Times this week reported that 17% of American households are now cellphone-only, and that number may reach 20% by the end of the year as tougher economic times and less expensive and easy-to-use mobile devices lead to increased cell phone use.

This trend raises interesting questions about the 2008 presidential election. Higher percentages of cellphone-only users are Millennials and minorities than the national average, and they tend to be more progressive than traditional landline users. For instance, a recent Pew Research Center poll found that cellphone-only voters greatly favored U.S. Sen. Barack Obama over U.S. Sen. John McCain: 61% of voters that were leaning toward a candidate went for Obama, compared to only 32% for McCain. Of those cell-only voters that were certain about their vote, 46% went for Obama while only 18% were voting for McCain.

One common concern is that this trend might throw off national opinion polls by under-representing young people and minorities. Polling companies are certainly aware of this problem, and use statistical weighting and more cell-phone polling to compensate – for example, Gallup now includes cell phones in every national poll they do, and Pew does strategic cell-phone surveys to adjust for differences between groups. While there is no real consensus about whether these measures sufficiently correct for the influence of cell-only voters, we should not assume that Obama has a “hidden” five-point advantage that will materialize in November.

More important than the challenges they pose for pollsters is the fact that cell-only users tend to be more transient and are less likely to be registered to vote. They are harder to reach for voter registration and get-out-the-vote initiatives, but are critical to Obama’s success in November. The Obama campaign understands this, and has revolutionized the use of mobile technology in politics by launching Obama Mobile, which uses SMS messaging to help register voters and remind them to actually vote, as well as to send them regular campaign updates. By inviting people to sign up to receive the text announcement of his VP choice, the Obama campaign added many new mobile numbers into their database, which should translate into increased turnout from cell-only users come November.

The Obama campaign has also launched Obama Movil, the Spanish-language version of Obama Mobil. This is especially important, given that Hispanics are more likely to be cell-only users and use text-messaging more than many other demographics (49% of adult Latinos use text-messaging on their mobile phones, compared to 31% of whites), but use the Internet and landlines less than other groups. Mobile technology is therefore critical in reaching a demographic that could have a profound influence on the outcome of this election. The Obama program seems poised to build on the success of similar text-based programs for Hispanics. 

NDN and the New Politics Institute have been talking about the increasing importance of mobile technology to progressives for some time, and we are finally seeing the new politics coming of age in a big way. To read more from us about how mobile technology is changing politics as we know it, read our NPI papers Go Mobile and The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation.