Hi James,

Thanks for your questions and allowing me to join you tonight!

1) I think BlueNC could definitely play a role in building up the next generation of progressive leaders. One way would be to invite young people to blog on this website about the issues that are important to them, things they are working on, etc – similar to what I’m doing tonight. As you said in a later question, the average age of your bloggers is between 30-40. I think it would be a wonderful idea to get some College Democrat leaders from different parts of the state on here to write about the things they are doing to promote our Democratic agenda. This is something I would be happy to help facilitate for you if you’re interested :-)

2) If you loaned me this site for twelve months, it would be a disaster, haha. I know absolutely nothing about websites, so I’m sure I would accidentally crash the site – which no one wants! I do think that the conversation on this website could be improved by bringing in our young leaders. Yesterday, we traveled to Winston Salem to shoot our 2011-2012 recruitment video with the Salem College Democrats. The theme of the video was “Our Democratic Party,” which discussed how young people are not just the future of the party – they are the now. Young people play a vital role in the political process right now and we need to do more to include them in the inner political conversations. It is important when we're discussing the progressive agenda and future of this party to incorporate an overwhelmingly large portion of the population that is going to be directly impacted by this agenda. The progressive future in North Carolina will be much stronger if we incorporate young people into this conversation.

3) Concerning blogs versus Facebook for political activism, I think it really just depends. I know an entire audience of politicos who spend hours surfing through the blogs online to get their political news and updates, but I also know an entire generation of college students who spend their online time writing papers and on Facebook. I think it’s important to pull those students who mainly get their news their friend’s Facebook/Twitter posts outside that realm of social media into more in depth conversations about issues – like what you would usually find on blogs. Like I said earlier, I think it would be beneficial to BlueNC and other like blog websites to make an active push to recruit young people as writers. The reason the age averages between 30-40 on BlueNC isn’t because young people don’t care or don’t want to be involved – it’s because they don’t know or have yet to be engaged. Once you make an active push to bring these young people into these conversations, they will become involved and develop their own level of engagement in the political process.

3) The College Democrats of North Carolina have over 30 chapters across the state with around 1,000 members.

As part of our 2010 election efforts, the College Democrats of North Carolina did a large push for voter registration across the state. We targeted 4 HBCU (Historically Black College & University) schools to push these efforts on. With 11 HBCUs in North Carolina, we only have 1 College Democrat chapter on all those campuses. With the voter registration efforts, long story short, it was a complete failure. We couldn't get any support to promote political awareness/activism on these campuses. After that, it really put the issue of HBCU outreach and engagement on the forefront of our agenda.

I don't deal with failure well, I was extremely bothered by the fact that we weren't able to have success on these HBCU campuses. So I started bouncing ideas around with several people, making calls, getting perspective from HBCU students, etc about how we could get students involved on these campuses. The final productive of my 3 week brainstorming session was the HBCU Leadership Conference. We decided to bring students from each of these schools to one central location for a full day of trainings, speakers, motivational breakout sessions, networking events, etc. We wanted to bring these students together to 1) inspire and motivate them to be involved in the political process and 2) give them the tools, resources, and knowledge necessary to take this inspiration back to their campuses and communities and be effective leaders. We've got a great agenda lined up for students with over 20 speakers from across the state, including Congressman Mel Watt, NCDP Chair David Parker, State Rep. Alma Adams, State Senator Gladys Robinson, OFA State Field Director Greg Jackson, Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Cannon, and many other elected officials, party leaders, and HBCU alum from across the state.

A lot of people talk about how important the issue of HBCU outreach is. Everyone thinks it's important to get these students involved and engaged, but it seems like not much is ever done about it. I'm proud that the College Democrats of North Carolina have worked hard to make a real, ambitious push to make the first step in HBCU outreach. But we haven't done it without help. We've received a lot of support from our national organization - College Democrats of America and the Democratic National Committee. We were lucky to secure a grant from the DNC as well as donations from folks across North Carolina to make this event completely free of charge to students. I hope this conference serves as the beginning of a long, consistent line of communication and involvement between HBCU students and the Democratic Party.

The voter ID bill is something that is definitely at the top of our radar. After the 2010 elections, we have really been focusing on keeping students engaged after a tough defeat. The way we have structured this is focusing on holding our leaders and the new Republican majority in the General Assembly accountable and making sure students are aware of what's going on.

I can't even count how many students I know personally that would be affected by this legislation - including myself. I am currently registered at my campus address, but my license still has my home address. I don't know any student that changes their license to match their dorm room address. University issued student IDs don't have addresses on them and like you said, students who live in dorm rooms aren't going to have utility bills. No matter how they write the details of the bill, it's really hard for me to see a scenario where we aren't going to have our work cut out for us regarding the student vote.

CDNC is playing a very active role in opposing this legislation. Last month, we held a statewide chapter conference call with the highest chapter participation we've ever had (over 20 chapters represented) with OFA State Field Director Greg Jackson and NCDP Chair David Parker about the voter ID bill. We made sure students knew what was going on with the legislation, what it meant for our party, and more directly - what it meant for students. With the help of OFA and the NCDP, we were able to portray to students why this bill is something that their chapters should get involved in opposing on a local and statewide level.

CDNC also created a guide for chapters and students on how to get their voices heard on legislation like this. We included several pieces of legislation that we felt were particularly harmful to students, with voter ID at the top of that list, and gave in depth ways for students to get involved. This includes calling their state legislators, holding visibility/informational events on their campuses, writing letters to the editors for their school and local newspaper, etc. We also included directions, tips, and letter to the editor templates for students to use. We did ask students to make calls to the Governor in the event that legislation did pass and her veto would be necessary. We want to make sure that Governor Perdue knows she has the political support to make these tough decisions.

On a statewide level, CDNC issued a press release and regional letters to the editor strongly opposing the voter ID bill and what it meant for students. We have also organized our statewide lobby day to bring students from across the state together in Raleigh to speak with state legislators and voice our opposition.

Like I said earlier, I feel like no matter how the details of this bill are written, if it passes, we are going to have our work cut out for us. If we want students to be engaged in the 2011 municipal elections, we're going to have to educate them on how to vote all over again. It really makes our work as a student organization twice as hard. It's already a hard job spending countless hours reaching out to our peers, engaging them in a daunting, confusing, and sometimes cynical political process, and keeping them engaged when the superstars aren't on the ballot. But with this voter ID bill, we have a completely different battle to fight. We not only have to get these students engaged, involved, and wanting to vote, but we have to re-education our entire audience on how to vote. So, in answer to your last question, yes we are thinking about the possibility of the bill passing. And yes, we are preparing for long, uphill battle if it does. But we're ready. We have a strong statewide organization and amazing chapters that I am very proud of and I know each and every College Democrat in the state is up to this challenge.