Hope For America

Marty Kaplan: Bong Hits 4 Bush - Politics on The Huffington Post: "...Despite the criminalization of dissent by the Bush Administration, its Court, and its courtiers, there's something going on among young Americans. You can see it with Joseph Frederick, with the Presidential Scholars, with Jesse Lange, the Boulder, Colorado high school junior who -- with aplomb, civility and absolute command of the facts -- absolutely nailed Bill O'Reilly last week for lying about a sex-education class at his school. You can see it in this new New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll, which shows that majorities of Americans 17 to 29 want single-payer health care and believe that reducing global warming should be a top government priority. Seventy percent of them say the country is on the wrong track, and 77 percent of them 'said they thought the votes of their generation would have a great bearing on who becomes the next president.'

I sure hope so. But hope is not a plan. Is there a need for anything more than these stories of outspoken young people, and these poll numbers about their generation, to warrant a flat-out effort to register 18-year-old in the country to vote? Right now, there's an effort going on to do just that. It's a non-profit, non-partisan campaign called "Declare Yourself," and its Web site is DeclareYourself.org. Research shows that if people don't cast their first vote, when they're eligible as teenagers, it may not be until they're in their 30s that they go to the polls. But if they register and vote when they're 18, they're likely to be lifelong voters. I can't think of anything more important than making it as easy as possible for this generation coming up to get into the habit of citizenship. To echo Presidential Scholar Leah Libresco: registering 18-year-olds to vote shouldn't be a partisan issue, and it shouldn't be a controversial issue.

Just like human rights."