celebrity influence

Check out the full post at: think.mtv.com

This is the first piece in a year-long series about young people, voting and politics.

How MTV's Street Team is Changing Politics

Our generation is changing politics-who participates and who wins.

Normally around this time of the year we hear from pundits and reporters that young people don't vote, they're apathetic, just a group of elusive voters and anyone that tries to get them to vote or involved in politics might as well be chasing windmills.

Well, we actually know what gets young people to vote. You simply talk to them about issues they care about both where they live and where they hang out and they turn out to vote. Better yet, they also stay involved in their communities year round.

Increasingly, young people are hanging out online and obviously live in all 50 states including DC. So if you want more young people involved in politics, you are probably wondering what will work in 2008 to get a critical mass of young people to the polls. Just how can you get more than 20 million to turn out this time around? Welcome to MTV's Street Team ‘08.

Before the Now, First the Then (or lessons learned)
2004 was the first time we saw an increase in youth turnout in over a decade. The last time before that was 1992 when MTV's Choose or Lose program targeted politicians to get them on record about issues young people care about. Bill Clinton embraced MTV, wrapped himself in the MTV flag just like Madonna did in her famous ad on MTV in 1990, and the youth vote that year helped propel him to the White House.