Sat, 19 May 2012 06:57:08 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails SocialSphere Feeds SocialSphere en Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/10_eight-lessons-of-the-midterm-elections Full article: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/16/eight-lessons-of-the-2010-midterms/ Lesson 5: It's (Once Again) the Economy, Stupid In 1992, the American people turned out of office a president who, 19 months earlier had registered an astounding 89 percent job approval rating in a Gallup Poll. They did this with the encouragement of a Democratic candidate who vowed to focus "like a laser" on the economy and the needs and worries of the middle class. The presumption, encouraged by Bill Clinton, was that President George H.W. Bush was out of touch with everyday Americans – at a time the U.S. economy was a lot more robust than it is today.   The first election cycle in the Age of Obama took place in 2009, and its lessons were perhaps easy to miss at the time. In Virginia, Democrats focused their fire on Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell's past association with Pat Robertson, with a paper he wrote in graduate school, and http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/10_eight-lessons-of-the-midterm-elections Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/9_where-obama-should-invest-now Talking recently with Russian scholar Gregory Asmolov about Ushahidi's latest efforts in Russia with the wild fires got me thinking. If a handful of social entrepreneurs from Kenya could create an open-source "social mapping" platform that successfully tracks and sheds light on violence in Kenya, earthquake response in Chile and Haiti, and the oil spill in the Gulf -- what else can we use it for? At a time when close to 20 million Pakistani flood victims are desperately waiting for relief from the U.S. military and international organizations -- Wired's Danger Room reports that our government is relying on "home-brewed" mapping tools because our government's efforts have been far too "tech-lite" to date. The good news is that the open-source community around the world has stepped up and filled the void, helped people, and made an impact. The bad news is that America has not done more to help. Now is the time. Let's take a minimum of .5% o http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/9_where-obama-should-invest-now Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/8_from-facebook-to-government%3A-can-millennials-increase-government-popularity%3F John Della Volpe | September 2010 It may be difficult to look beyond the mounting deficits, partisan rancor and political gridlock driving headlines today. But at this moment exists a unique opportunity to reshape government -- in Washington, D.C., in every state capital and throughout local government in America. Approximately 60 percent of the federal work force is age 45 and older , according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, including one in every three mid- to senior-level federal officials is preparing to retire in the near term. At the state and local levels, a similar retirement wave is taking place, according to the Center for State and Local Government Excellence. Baby boomers are exiting the public work force in numbers that will grow significantly over time. With so many longtime government workers heading into retirement, our nation has a tremendous if not unprecedented chance to match new, collaborative Web and mobile technologie http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/8_from-facebook-to-government-can-millennials-increase-government-popularity Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/12_2010-midterms-elections-and-young-voters John Della Volpe talked about the new Harvard Institute of Politics poll that looks at the voting participation and political ideology of the millennial generation. According to the poll, less than 27 percent of this generation will definitely be voting in 2010 midterm elections. He also responded to telephone calls and electronic communications.   http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/12_2010-midterms-elections-and-young-voters Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/13_poll%3A-young-voters-are-less-fired-up%2C-ready-to-go POLITICS -- October 21, 2010 at 1:25 PM EDT Poll: Young Voters Are Less Fired Up, Ready to Go By: Quinn Bowman The head of University Democrats at the University of Virginia tries to register voters for the upcoming midterm elections. AFP photo by Saul Loeb In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama won the support of a large majority of voters ages 18-29. Approximately two-thirds of voters in that age bracket supported his bid for the presidency. And overall youth turnout in that election was big: 51 percent of eligible voters ages 18-29 cast a ballot in 2008. Fast forward to our current 2010 midterm election cycle. While midterms are usually defined by lower participation levels compared to the higher-profile presidential races, a new Harvard University study shows just how disengaged younger voters are from the process compared to just two years ago. Harvard's Institute of Politics polle http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/13_poll-young-voters-are-less-fired-up-ready-to-go Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/14_young-voters-divided-over-obama%2C-poll-finds Two years after young voters helped propel Barack Obama to victory, a new poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics finds young adults divided over the job he is doing as president and not very likely to vote in the upcoming elections. Most registered voters age 18 to 29 years old do say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, according to the poll. But young adults are less likely to vote in midterm elections, underscoring how risky it is for Democrats to rely on their support this year. Indeed, just 40 percent of young registered voters say they will definitely vote in November and just 25 percent say they are politically engaged, the poll found. Nearly 3 in 10 young adults, moreover, say they are not registered to vote; two-thirds say they are. In contrast, older Americans are more likely to be registered, and far more likely to say they will vote. In a CBS News poll conducted earlier this month, nearly 9 in 10 adults age 45 or older said they are registe http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/14_young-voters-divided-over-obama-poll-finds Sat, 06 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/11_governing-without-a-net Governing Without a Net Obama’s online troops are clicked off. by Daniel LyonsNovember 06, 2010 What happened to the Netroots? That’s what I’ve been wondering ever since the Republicans routed the Democrats last week. Two years ago, a lot of people—myself included—really believed that all those online activists who helped elect Barack Obama were going to stick around and support him as he pushed through a sweeping list of progressive measures. Instead, those idealistic young folks have all dried up and blown away, while Tea Party people like Sarah Palin have used Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to lead a backlash. I cringe with embarrassment when I reread the article my NEWSWEEK colleague Daniel Stone and I wrote after the 2008 election. We raved about how Obama’s Internet army of motivated young people would “stick around and help him govern” and, as one http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/11_governing-without-a-net Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/1_What-Obama-Can-Teach-You-About-Your-Business Memo to CEOs: Yes You Can. The Obama campaign can teach businesses a few things about using technology. The campaign changes the game just as much as the introduction of tracking polls or focus groups, and is perhaps the most prominent example yet of Net Roots, a combination of Internet and grassroots strategies. How well has the Obama campaign used technology compared to others? Obama's use of and understanding of technology is better than any campaign I've ever seen -- ever. Certainly better than any campaigns in this cycle. What are some lessons we can take away form the way the Obama campaign has utilized IT? There's a lot of up front expense to building the databases and building the infrastructure to run campaigns. Most campaigns think of that as an expense. They think, "What can we do to save as much money as we possibly can until the final week of the election so we can run TV ads?" The Obama campaign looked at it completely different. The Obama campaig http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/1_what-obama-can-teach-you-about-your-business Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/20_a-generation-of-slackers%3F-not-so-much   The reaction from many older Americans? This generation had it coming.  Generation Y — or Millennials, the Facebook Generation or whatever you want to call today’s cohort of young people — has been accused of being the laziest generation ever. They feel entitled and are coddled, disrespectful, narcissistic and impatient, say authors of books like “The Dumbest Generation” and “Generation Me.”  And three in four Americans believe that today’s youth are less virtuous and industrious than their elders, a 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center found.  In a sign of humility or docility, young people agree. In that 2009 Pew survey, two-thirds of millennials said older adults were superior to the younger generation when it came to moral values and work ethic.  After all, if there’s a young person today who’s walked 10 miles barefoot through the snow to school, it was probably on an iPhone http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/20_a-generation-of-slackers-not-so-much Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/21_moving-home%3A-when-college-grads-face-uncertain-futures LANSDALE, Pa. -- One midnight in April, Sabrina Malik pulls her red Chevy Blazer into her mother's asphalt driveway, removes the keys from the ignition, and stops to take a deep breath. Alone in the darkness, a sense of defeat courses through her body -- disappointment about her past and uncertainty about what lies ahead. This, she thinks to herself, is surely what failure feels like. Six years ago, Malik fled this town for Syracuse University. Since graduating in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in art history, she has yet to find a decent job. She hadn't planned on moving back home and, at the age of 23, never expected to return to her mother's house for an extended and open-ended period of time. "At times, it really feels very personal, it really feels like I've failed," says Malik, standing in the kitchen of her mother's two-story stone house and recalling the eight weeks since she returned home. She's wearing khaki shorts and white socks that come up to her ankles. Gl http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/21_moving-home-when-college-grads-face-uncertain-futures Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/4_The-Millennial-vote THE RECENT installment of the Harvard University Institute of Politics' survey of Politics and Public Service, shows much has changed since our first national poll of young people was taken during spring 2000. Seven years ago, we were in the middle of the first dot.com economic cycle but also a cycle of record low turnout among college-aged youth who were disconnected from government and the political process. At that time, young people chose stock options and community service over politics, failing to recognize the long-term benefits gained by political action and civic engagement. Much has changed over the course of seven years: the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and greater concern over global warming. But another thing that is different -- perhaps due in part to some or all of these things -- is the level of engagement of young Americans in politics. Since our first survey in 2000: Voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/4_the-millennial-vote Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/15_young-americans%3A-obama-is-doing-better President Barack Obama’s approval rating among young Americans appears to have bounced back. A Harvard University poll of 18- to 29-year-olds released today shows Mr. Obama’s job approval rating rose to 55% from 49% in October, the first increase in a year and a half, while 43% disapproved of his job performance. In the three previous Harvard polls, taken in the fall and spring, Mr. Obama’s popularity declined with young Americans. The results stand in sharp contrast to a Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters 18 and older released Wednesday; that poll  showed Mr. Obama’s approval rating sinking to 42%. While the Harvard poll showed 55% of young Americans approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance, the president’s comeback on four-year college campuses was even more dramatic. Six in 10 students approve of the president’s job performance, up one in 10 last October. The poll of 3,018 18- to 29-year-olds was conducted fr http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/15_young-americans-obama-is-doing-better Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/16_obama-regains-poll-standing-with-young-people After a dip in the fall that included a rough election, President Obama is regaining his standing among young people, according to a new poll. Our colleague Chuck Raasch with the Gannett Washington Bureau reports: Support for President Obama has risen among Americans ages 18-29, despite the Millennial Generation's sour views toward government and on Obama's handling of the economy and the war in Afghanistan, a new Harvard University Institute of Politics survey says. The IOP polled 3,018 adults ages 18-29 online from Feb. 11-March 2. The survey, taken before the recent military action in Libya, showed that Obama's job approval among this age group was 55%, up from 49% in October. By 2-1, Americans ages 18-29 said the county was going in the wrong direction, largely unchanged since last fall. Less than 30% said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing most of the time, and only one in four said so of Congress. Obama was running even against a generic R http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/16_obama-regains-poll-standing-with-young-people Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/7_Will-America-Heed-Millennials%27-Call%3F For more than a decade, I have been honored to collaborate with hundreds of talented students and to direct the polling for Harvard's Institute of Politics. And thanks to my friends Erin Ashwell (Harvard '02) and Trevor Dryer (Harvard '02), in 2000, we launched the first research project of its kind, one that looks into the hearts and minds of America's Millennial generation. While much of the Millennial-related news since 2004 has been positive and inspiring, at no time since our original survey in 2000 has the mood among America's youngest cohort of voters seemed so dour. Our latest survey, the 17th edition, tells us that a little more than one year after the inauguration of President Obama, there are millions of young people scattered across the country who are losing faith in government, politics and in too many cases -- the American Dream. Solid majorities of Millennials tell us that they are seriously concerned about paying their current bills and obligations -- savi http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/7_will-america-heed-millennials-call Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/5_The-New-Volunteers-of-America A year before the 2000 election, two Harvard sophomores asked me how to run a survey that would measure the level of civic engagement among people their age. Of course, we didn't know then how much the project would presage the youth movement we see gathering in America today. These students were eager to vote in a national political contest for the first time. But they were also frustrated by the perception that young people were apathetic and wouldn't vote. It was true that the participation of young voters in major elections had been declining. But these kids and their friends were devoting themselves to community service, spending unpaid hours tutoring children and working at food banks. They were hardly apathetic. Several months after the election, 12 other students and I began conducting biannual surveys of the attitudes of the younger generation toward politics and public service. The results showed that our youth were committed to serving their communities but n http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/5_the-new-volunteers-of-america Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/19_medication-is-cited-in-horse-racing%27s-decline-in-u.s.  The American thoroughbred industry has acknowledged recently that it is in trouble, and on Monday, its counterparts from around the world told it why: it races too often, allows race-day medications that prop up inferior horses and is paying the price for these flaws with plummeting sales at breeding auctions.   “European buyers are drifting away because we view the performances of U.S. horses with skepticism because of the medication policies, and the stallions are not comparable to ‘clean’ European stallions,” Denis Egan, the chief executive of the Irish Turf Club, which is responsible for regulating Ireland’s racing industry, said at an International Summit on Race Day Medication at Belmont Park.   With bipartisan legislation calling for federal regulation of performance-enhancing drugs and medications as well as stiff penalties for offenders, horse racing’s stakeholders are taking a hard http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/19_medication-is-cited-in-horse-racings-decline-in-us Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/17_survey-shows-boost-in-obama-approval-ratings-among-%27millennials%27- President Obama is starting to regain the trust of a key demographic that helped elect him in 2008, according to a new poll from Harvard University released on Thursday. Harvard's Institute of Politics (IOP) conducted a national survey on the political views of "Millennials" - 18 to 29-year-old Americans - throughout the country. The poll included 3,018 interviews conducted between Feb. 11 and March 2. Millennials had grown skeptical of President Obama in the years following his election, the IOP reported. In the 2008 presidential election, nearly 70 percent of voters 29 and younger voted for President Obama - the highest ever for any one candidate. But IOP surveys since 2009 showed his job-approval ratings among young people declining, even dipping below 50 percent during the rancorous midterm election season. Recently, however, Millennials seem to be warming up to the president again, with his approval rating increasing from 49 percent to 55 percent in the pa http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/17_survey-shows-boost-in-obama-approval-ratings-among-millennials- Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:43:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/33_obama-campus-fervor-losing-to-apathy-as-students-sour-on-2012  On election night 2008, freshman Meagan Cassidy left Lake Forest College and hopped a train to Chicago to celebrate Barack Obama’s impending victory. “There was probably no better place to be,” Cassidy said in a phone interview. The excitement generated that evening spurred her on to become an intern and then a field organizer in three congressional contests and two human rights campaigns. Now a senior, Cassidy, 21, said she’s not working on a campaign this time around. She’s too busy looking for a job at a nonprofit advocacy group. She and her friends aren’t discussing the election as much as in 2008, she said. “There is not much talk of Obama at all,” Cassidy said of the mood on campus, which extends beyond the president. “I don’t think anyone’s satisfied.” Obama enjoyed a wave of youth support in his run to the presidency, winning 66 percent of voters aged 18-to-29 in the race against Republica http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/33_obama-campus-fervor-losing-to-apathy-as-students-sour-on-2012 Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:56:00 -0400 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/32_the-go-nowhere-generation  AMERICANS are supposed to be mobile and even pushy. Saul Bellow’s Augie March declares, “I am an American ... first to knock, first admitted.” In “The Grapes of Wrath,” young Tom Joad loads up his jalopy with pork snacks and relatives, and the family flees the Oklahoma dust bowl for sun-kissed California. Along the way, Granma dies, but the Joads keep going. But sometime in the past 30 years, someone has hit the brakes and Americans — particularly young Americans — have become risk-averse and sedentary. The timing is terrible. With an 8.3 percent unemployment rate and a foreclosure rate that would grab the attention of the Joads, young Americans are less inclined to pack up and move to sunnier economic climes. The likelihood of 20-somethings moving to another state has dropped well over 40 percent since the 1980s, according to calculations based on Census Bureau data. The stuck-at-home mentality hits college-educated Americans as well a http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/32_the-go-nowhere-generation Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:20:00 -0500 http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/31_young-voters-getting-engaged-in-politics When Lizzie Shubin was attending Western Michigan University during the last presidential election, almost all of her peers were supporting then-candidate Barack Obama. But Shubin was lined up behind Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who so far has captured the votes of young people as Republican candidates duke it out in the primaries for the presidential nomination and head to Michigan next month. "He is principled," said Shubin, 25, who is now volunteering for Paul's campaign in her hometown of Ann Arbor. "He has stuck to his guns no matter if it's a popular idea or not. So we can trust him. I find that rare in a politician." As the GOP primary season continues, the race is on forthe critical youth vote, which was an unprecedented voting bloc for Obama and helped lead him to a victory in 2008. Many young people are discouraged by the poor job market, but experts point to the occupy movements to show they are not disengaged politically. Historically an underapp http://www.socialsphere.com/newsdetails/31_young-voters-getting-engaged-in-politics