The Arkansas Progress Team began organizing three months ago to bring new leadership, ideas, and membership to the Arkansas Young Democrats by focusing on progressive offline and online grassroots organizing. Their three main goals are to increase membership (check this one already), increase fund raising, and increase awareness on the issues important to Young Democrats. On Saturday, April 18th, over 200 Young Democrats turned out to vote at the State Capitol Building and delivered the Arkansas Progress Team a victory.
Left to Right: Eric Bell (Sec/Treas), Jonathan Spinks (Committeeman), and Chris Burks (President)
This has been a horrific week of performance by the Democrats in Congress. Habeas, Moveon, the Webb amendment, Iraq, etc. And yet, here's the blog post and email by YDA.
If you are on our email list, are friends with me on facebook, or obsessively follow what we are doing from our webpage - you will have noticed that the Speaker's office released a report on their progress with youth issues.
This is actually a VERY COOL development. The fact that our leaders are acknowledging how important we are to this country AND doing something about it can only be a good thing. No longer are we stuck with a Congress that only cares about the wealthy, corporations, seniors, and has no problem giving us a bunch of lip service.
We think it is important for young people to realize exactly how much the Dems have done for them this year - and the progress report is a great way to show them.
So - go check out the progress report ... and then help us thank the Dems for all they've done for us!
There's tremendous opportunity in the youth space. College Democrats is growing strongly, and this generation is the most progressive generation alive today. Even so, the Democracy Alliance reduced funding to youth groups probably because of the proof displayed here that there's no coherent strategy behind YDA, although it's not clear to me if YDA got dinged in the funding cut. They should have been dinged. This is exactly the kind of sycophantic behavior that should be stamped out of the political system.
UPDATE: I have no idea whether YDA's funding should be cut or expanded, and I actually emailed back and forth with a YDA funder and wrote that this could just be a one-off mistake. I just wanted to offer a rationale for why the Democracy Alliance cut off funding earlier for youth organizing programs. Going forward, there should obviously be huge piles of money pumped into this space, just as YDA shouldn't be so clumsy on days when everything falls apart for Democrats (the loss of habeas, Webb amendment, etc). Lots of stuff should happen in this world that isn't happening, and vice versa. Criticism is a way of offering suggestions for improvement.
And yes, I think college loans and the minimum wage are important.
John Edwards was the only presidential candidate to come to the YDA Conference in Dallas, Texas last week. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each sent a representative to speak on their behalf. It says a lot that Edwards showed up to an organization that needs attention. It shows that he is committed to helping young people in the Democratic party. We are the ones who will get out your vote, candidates. As one of the presenters said, "you guys aren't the future of the Democratic Party, you're the present."
(I'm second on the right of John in the front row.) originals
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