Rock the Vote Picks Up the Beat

Los Angeles Times

August 11, 2003

Rock the Vote picks up the beat

A decade after its heyday, the group renews its push
to get young adults to polls.
By Susannah Rosenblatt Times Staff Writer
There was a time when voting was cool. A time when a
presidential candidate stumped for support by playing
his sax; when MTV, Madonna and R.E.M. were adding to the
political discourse and candidates were addressing the
concerns of young adults.

A time - a decade ago now - when Rock the Vote, a
nonpartisan organization that registers young people to
vote, was creating a buzz. Now its leaders say it’s
their time again and, as the 2004 election nears, they
are making plans to elbow back onto the political - and
pop cultural - stage.

Founded in 1990 by record company executive Jeff Ayeroff
and headquartered in Westwood, the group’s message
clicked with younger voters, whose participation in the
1992 election spiked to 43% from 36% in the previous
election. That was the highest turnout in that age group
– whose participation had been steadily declining -
since 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote in
1971.

"I think it’s very rare that I talk to someone my age
that was not touched by Rock the Vote between 1990 and
1992," said the group’s 31-year-old executive director,
Jehmu Greene.
But by 2000 the magic seemed to have faded and the
momentum stalled. The numbers of young adults casting
votes tumbled back down - 32% in 1996 and 2000. Just 45%
of that age group was registered to vote in 2000, a 30-
year low.

"The novelty has worn off," said Diana Owen, a
Georgetown University associate professor who
specializes in voting patterns. Rock the Vote "is now a
routine stop for candidates on the campaign trail."
That’s why Greene and Hans Riemer, the director of the
organization’s recently opened Washington office, think
it’s time to shake things up again. The group hopes to
recapture its original momentum, relying in part on a
new partnership with country stars the Dixie Chicks.
"Because we want to put a real focus on young women in
the next election, there’s really no better group we
could think of than the Dixie Chicks," Riemer said. "The
Chicks have a real girl power vibe going."

The Grammy-winning Texas trio drew a firestorm of
criticism after lead singer Natalie Maines made an anti-
Bush remark to a London audience in March, leading many
fans and radio stations to boycott their music. Rock the
Vote welcomes the group’s recent notoriety.
"Rock the Vote is an organization that is strongly for
free expression," Riemer said. The Dixie Chicks, who
just gave $100,000 to the organization for a voter
registration Web site, will help spread the group’s
message online and in TV and radio public service
announcements.

Supplementing the Dixie Chicks campaign is a massive
Internet-based voter registration program that debuted
last month. The application was designed with eye-
catching graphics and Internet accessibility to appeal
to young people.
"The application can take you all the way through the
process," Riemer said. Users simply "print it, sign it,
lick it and mail it. One of the big reasons young people
aren’t registered to vote is that they don’t know how to
do it."

In addition to the PSAs and Internet presence, Greene
and Reimer said they will employ "guerrilla marketing"
techniques, such as using cell phone text messaging to
organize events and papering cities with banners and
fliers.
Rocker Lenny Kravitz, one of the group’s celebrity
endorsers, drew 4 million visitors to Rock the Vote’s
Web site (www. rockthevote.org) when he released his new
protest song "We Want Peace" there in March. The
organization also will co-host a two-day music festival
later this month at the original Woodstock site in
upstate New York.

"Celebrities are important in opening [young people’s]
ears so they don’t immediately block out political
messages," Greene said. "We use celebrities to bring
them in the door."
They also want to bring in the politicians. Young people
need to be spurred into civic involvement because,
Greene said, the 26 million 18- to 24-year-old voters in
the U.S. are being ignored.

"The candidates aren’t reaching out to young people,"
Greene said. "The political parties don’t include young
voters as a primary target as far as where they spend
their resources.
"If we really look at it, then democracy is facing a
crisis when generations are opting out of
participating," she said. Voter participation "is not
going to immediately increase as we grow older. It’s not
a youth problem, it’s an American problem."
The new Washington office, which opened in March, will
bring the organization closer to the political action.
"You can’t influence power without having a relationship
with it," Riemer said. He hopes to work with
organizations and politicians in both parties to create
new programs for Rock the Vote.

Some politicians seem to be getting the message. Rep.
Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) hopes to "connect the dots for
young people, between their lives and Washington
decisions that will be made on their behalf," she said
in a recent interview.
Although Rock the Vote does not endorse candidates or
lobby for legislation, it does skew left on particular
issues, like gay marriage. "It’s not partisan to say
everyone deserves the protection of the law in terms of
civil unions and marriage," Riemer said. "If people in
Washington think that’s partisan, then that’s their
problem."

Rock the Vote also plans to jump into the increasingly
bizarre tangle of California politics. The group, which
does not endorse a candidate in the gubernatorial recall
election, will urge young voters to participate -
primarily to oppose Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy
Initiative that would prohibit the state from gathering
racial demographic data for state programs.
The proposition "makes racial minorities invisible in
the eyes of the government," Riemer said. "It’s going to
have disastrous results for education, housing, health
care It makes the government powerless to put a stop to
discrimination and racism."

With 12 full-time staffers in its two offices, Rock the
Vote has registered more than 2 million people since
1990. Its $10-million budget for the 2004 election comes
from donors, private grants and corporations, said Chief
Operating Officer Michael Evans.
As the political climate has evolved since 1992, so has
Rock the Vote’s mission. Once primarily focused on
promoting voter registration in a trendy package, the
group’s agenda has expanded, becoming more issue-
oriented.

"The organization is saying, the way we’re going to get
young people excited about going to the polls is not
just using celebrities to talk to them, but actually
discussing issues," Riemer said. He hopes to build and
strengthen connections with labor unions and civil
rights groups. Rock the Vote already has partnerships
with the NAACP, MTV, World Wrestling Entertainment and
rap mogul Russell Simmons’ Rap the Vote project, among
others.

Rock the Vote has lately been spreading the gospel of
political engagement through community street teams,
small groups of young volunteers that canvass large
cities registering one young person at a time. The
program was launched in 2001 with seven teams; this year
there are 50, with 100 projected for 2004. The current
corps of about 1,000 volunteers will be expanded to
10,000 closer to the election, Evans said.

"Our role in the 2004 election is to put young people on
the map," said Greene, who says she first registered to
vote through Rock the Vote at a 1991 Janet Jackson
concert in Austin, Texas. "There are several places in
the country where we’ll be able to increase 18- to 24-
year-old turnout by 1%, 2%, 3%. Elections will be
decided on those votes; young people are going to be
part of the decision-making on election day in a way
that I don’t think we’ve seen before."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-rosenblatt11aug11181416,1,2782509.story