This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Tues., Aug. 26, 2008 - DENVER 8:30 a.m. I attended the Youth Caucus meeting today in the Wells Fargo room of the convention center. People came from a number of voter outreach groups as well as college Democrats groups. A panel of people from the College Democrats of America, Rock the Vote and a few other youth organizations posted statistics about the percentage of young people who have voted Democratic, Republican and independent in the past. In the past, young people have voted more Republican than Democratic. But, in the most recent presidential elections, this has changed and the majority of young people now vote Democratic. The panelists wanted to emphasize that Democrats cannot take the youth vote for granted. If the party wants their support, it has talk to them and try to get their support.
There was a lot of discussion about registering young people to vote. The panel said that about 80 percent of registered young people vote, so registering more people will help increase the turnout. Most of the panelists supported same-day voter registration and said that they believed a national law allowing same-day registration would increase youth vote turnout.
Wed. Aug. 27, 2008
8:10 a.m.
The convention was very crowded last night. During the convention, I got to sit by state Sen. Chris Koster, who will hopefully be our new attorney general. He was very excited to be a part of the convention and hear Sen. Hillary Clinton speak. The Missouri delegation area was packed. The Georgia delegation tried to take some Missouri seats, but we were able to get all of our spots back and seat all of the Missourians to watch Clinton's amazing speech. Cheering was so loud during parts of the speech that it was hard to hear. While she was speaking, I saw many people moved to tears. Clinton has broken down gender barriers and inspired many women and men.
When I was leaving the convention last night, I saw John Oliver, a correspondent for "The Daily Show." I watched him taping a segment for the show. I also got a picture with him. He was very nice to me and agreed to the picture despite the fact that he was running around trying to film things.
Following the convention, buses picked up the Missouri delegation and volunteers and took us to a party at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. It was sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, Monsanto, Boeing, Burns & McDonnell, Jedunn construction, and Cerner. At the event we had free food and drinks. There also was a band playing music and some people danced. At the museum, there was a plane with stairs leading up to the pilot's seat and they let us go up and sit in the plane. Around 1 a.m., buses took us back to the Missouri delegation hotel, the Embassy Suites.
This morning at breakfast U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, and Sen. Jean Carnahan spoke. Each morning the Missouri delegation meets in a ballroom in our hotel for breakfast. At the breakfast we also get any important information we need to know for the day, including activities, transportation information and voting instructions.
Amanda Montee is blogging from the Democratic convention.