The Obama campaign realizes that if they have any hope of prevailing in November, they must recapture the excitement of young people as effectively as they did in 2008. But now that the shiny ideas of "hope" and "change" have lost their luster, breathing that electric air into the reelection campaign is proving to be a very heavy lift.
So, if you're the campaign manager for a failed President, how do you get kids' attention? Celebrities, of course.
After all, Obama used to be the biggest celebrity in the world.
According to the Boulder Daily Camera:
President Barack Obama's re-election campaign will be hosting an event on the University of Colorado campus March 21, bringing along actress America Ferrera, the star of "Ugly Betty."
The event will be from 6 to 8 p.m. in Duane Physics G1B30 and also feature David Simas, a campaign official. Campaign officials have pegged the Boulder campus as one of 10 to play host to presidential "summits" aimed at capturing the youth vote in swing states.
Student loans and Pell grants, aid for the most financially needy students, will be among the topics covered at the summit.
So the fact that these "Student Summits" are happening in swing states, including Colorado, shows the Obama campaign is going to try to use the same tactics that got him elected in 2008.
We should also expect that Obama will be utilizing the well-organized liberal infrastructure of 501(c)4 organizations built to persuade voters as part of the push.
The 501(c)4 New Era Colorado commented in a recent Daily Camera article:
Capturing the youth vote in Colorado — along with the votes of minorities and young, unmarried women — will be key for Obama and his eventual Republican rival, according to Steve Fenberg, who heads New Era Colorado, a progressive civic-engagement group.
"Any of these groups are important," Fenberg said. "For any of these candidates to win, they'll need to get a good chunk of votes from these groups."
Leading up to the last presidential election, New Era said it registered 12,000 new, young Colorado voters — who voted at a rate of 90 percent. The group follows up with those young people it registers to vote, partly by text messaging them and providing them with information about their precincts.
It’s a pretty good bet to assume the Obama campaign will use Ms. Ferrera to get kids in the door next week, while staffers from New Era Colorado walk around registering attendees to vote.
With such a direct political goal in mind for New Era and the Obama campaign, we wonder if Senator Michael Bennet will be asking the IRS to investigate anytime soon.