Youth Matters

Time Magazine does a magnificent job analyzing the youth vote in 2008 and the critical role it has played in Obama's success. As the article clearly states, Obama asked and worked for the youth vote and that is why Generation Obama exists:

Obama's outreach to students didn't spring from some starry-eyed principle. It started as a specific element of his early strategy in Iowa. The first-in-the-nation caucuses allow 17-year-olds to vote if they are going to turn 18 before the general election, which means most high school seniors are eligible. To win those kids, Obama did something unusual in politics: he made them a genuine priority. After his rallies in towns across the state, he met backstage with student leaders from the area — a privilege most campaigns reserve for local VIPs and fund raisers. He also hired as his youth-vote coordinator Hans Riemer, a veteran of Rock the Vote, which has been working to mobilize the student vote for years, with increasing success. Riemer extracted a promise that his work would be an integral part of the overall campaign, not a lip-serviced, photo-op'ed afterthought. His timing was perfect. The art of political organizing is in the midst of a broad philosophical overhaul that erases many of the old distinctions between young voters and their elders.

And the result of Obama's outreach is clear:

Obama is the only candidate in either party who is viewed favorably by a majority of young people, and he has half again as much support as his nearest competitor, Democrat or Republican.

Now Generation Obama needs to continue to rally their friends for the rest of the campaign season:

Basically, it's 19th century politics using 21st century tools. The idea is rooted in a deceptively simple truth: voters are more likely to go to the polls if they are asked face-to-face by someone they trust. The rediscovery of this antique notion began in the 1990s when researchers at Yale University published several influential studies proving that personal canvassing is more effective than direct mail or phone calls from strangers. In 2001, Republicans put the idea to a test in several special congressional elections, and the extra money and time devoted to door-knocking produced instant results. So the G.O.P. expanded the effort in 2002, then applied it to presidential politics in 2004. The party's mammoth "72-Hour Project" — named for the final weekend of the campaign, when G.O.P. volunteers made literally millions of personal pitches — helped George W. Bush become the first candidate since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote.