Top MySpace Bands in the DemROCKracy competition

So we've told you about our first round winner, but check out what other bands are doing to win. With three weeks left, the competition is heating up. In second through fifth place, we have:

American Android: Indie/Alternative Rock from Tucson Arizona

Privies: San Francisco Bay area straight forward rock

Sleeper Star: One Republic meets Coldplay out of Dallas, Texas

Maldroid: Electronic Indie New Wave from Oakland, CA.

And trailing not too far behind is MAE, who sent us a blog post with a very compelling ask to register to vote:

We wanted to write you and let you know that we are supporting the Rock The Vote campaign to raise participation in the voting process. There are a million reasons why every one of us who is eligible to vote should exercise that right and be a participant in our democracy. Our system of government DEPENDS on our involvement and we have been given the gift of the power to determine the future of our society. Our founding fathers and mothers structured our government to keep the power in the hands of its citizens. If you are a member of this country then the responsibility to govern it is yours...

3,549 bands are competing for a chance to play at Ballot Bash '08 and win that last set of Gibson guitars. Check back to see who will take the lead in the final weeks.

DemROCKracy Band Competition-- First Round Winner!

[Rock the Trail reporter Sarah Burris meets the first winner of the DemROCKracy band competition, sponsored by Rock the Vote and MySpace Impact.]


Congrats to the super awesome Jackie V who won the first round of artists who won the DemROCKracy Band Competition!

If you don't know Jackie V you are missing out. She's 18 years old this year and has gone above and beyond to register voters on her MySpace page as well as in her community. She's been playing the piano since she was a little girl and now plays some edgy pop with a jazz twist all over Austin, Texas.

We caught up with Jackie today to present her with her beautiful new Gibson Guitar and encourage her to keep up the good work to get to the big Rock the Vote Concert Extravaganza in August!

-- Sarah Burris

Check out Jackie as she receives her guitar:

First Winner Chosen Today

Gang of Four's Dave Allen says it best:

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock all year you’ll know that this November is time to vote for president.

3,421 bands on MySpace are working to register their fans and tonight at midnight, the top band will win a Gibson SG Special guitar.

There's still one more month to go in the contest, so if you know someone who is hiding under a rock, send them over to myspace.com/rockthevote, where they can pick their favorite band and register to vote on their profile page.

DemROCKracy Update

Tomorrow Rock the Vote, in conjunction with MySpace Impact, is giving out the first prize of the DemROCKracy band competition-- a new Gibson SG Special.

With music bloggers like Rusty over at Stranded in Stereo spreading the word, over 3,100 bands have signed up to register voters:

Are you in a band? Do you believe in democracy? Big supporters of the upcoming election? Want to give your band some exposure? Well, don't we just have the ticket for you.

Check out the top 5 bands over at www.myspace.com/rockthevote. We'll announce the winners tomorrow.

Have you entered to win?

Dozens of bands have already signed up to register voters and win a chance to perform at Ballot Bash 2008 and receive a Gibson guitar.

www.myspace.com/rockthevote

If you're a musician with a MySpace account, you too can enter to win.

We'll start updating our MySpace profile soon with the leading bands, so get a headstart on registering voters.

Enter now for a chance to win

Rock the Vote is looking for a band to kick off our convention activities at the Ballot Bash Concert this August in Denver, CO.

www.myspace.com/rockthevote

Want to win a new Gibson Guitar and open for the DNC's best concert event?

Register the most voters between now and August 14, and you just might.

www.myspace.com/rockthevote

Check out the Rock the Vote and MySpace IMPACT DemROCKracy band competition to learn how you can register voters and win.

Digital Internships, the Young Voter Platform and MySpace

Everyone on the Digital Team is psyched about the Young Voter Platform and how many thousands of people have signed on. I just wanted to introduce you to our newest Digital Intern, who's been helping us get the word out on MySpace:

What up blogosphere! My name is Andrew Visnovsky. I came to DC to work with Rock the Vote all the way from the great state of Pennsylvania, Centre County precinct represent! I am pumped to have the opportunity to work with Rock The Vote in what is looking to be one of the most interesting and most important presidential election of my lifetime.

When I came home from school at the end of the spring I was presented with 2 options. Stay at home with, get a dead-end job and watch the world go by, or get out there and actually try to make a difference. I decided to do the latter. In-so-doing I will now be working the 1's and 0's in the digital department.

I'm really excited to be working with Rock the Vote and help with our goal of getting 2,000,000 young voters registered and to the voting booth in '08. I knew that voting and elections were going to be a priority in my life for a long time.

Take a second to check out Andrew's work at www.myspace.com/rockthevote.

Campaigns Must Do More Than Use MySpace and MTV to Capture Young Voters

The following post was written by Jane Fleming Kleeb and is cross posted at http://www.youngvoterpac.org/blog/

The 2008 Presidential cycle is here and candidates are increasingly competing for the youth vote. Rightfully so, young people voted in record numbers in the 2004 and 2006 elections and all signs point to 2008 being even bigger for the youth vote. It is not just hype or hope that young voters can swing an election; young people have proved they are voting at higher numbers and are now voting overwhelmingly for Democrats.

The question is what is it going to take to continue to get young people to the polls?

Today MTV and MySpace launched a new type of online discussion with candidates which will in theory reach young people in order to get them motivated to vote. Edwards is up first and his campaign thus far is doing exactly what they need to in order to capture the youth vote. They have a separate website for young voters, created an action arm with their One America and even John Edwards himself is on message when it comes to young voters when he said today "You hear all the time from political pundits that young people don’t care about politics – but it’s a lie. Young people all over the country care about America and are engaged in bringing change to their communities."

Too many campaigns get sidetracked and think there is a magic tactic or umbrella issue for capturing the youth vote. Right now that magic tactic seems to be new media tools including Facebook, MySpace, blog posts, text messages and online debates. None of these new media tools alone will get young people to the polls. Rather, what it takes to secure the youth vote is, interestingly enough, to treat them as serious constituents and target them as voters. It is not who is the most hip with the coolest MySpace page.

Young people are a sophisticated voting bloc and we now have the experience, research and best practices to know what works to turn them out to the polls. Most encouraging for Democratic campaigns, young people are now voting in record numbers, and favoring Democratic candidates by wide margins. In 2004, for example, young people preferred Democrats by a 10% point margin; by 2006 that margin had grown to an impressive 22% points.

Even better news, young people are not only voting for Democrats, for the first time in several years they are also identifying as Democrats. Just a few years ago, young people were split evenly among Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Now, 43% of young people as saying they are Democrats, only 31% Republican and a shrinking 26% of young people are saying they are Independents.

Now, while it is true that young people, ages 18-35, do not yet vote at the same levels as older voters, we have found that it is not because they are lazy or apathetic. The real reason is much simpler—for years, most campaigns have ignored them as voters and in turn young people ignored voting. Instead, most young people turned to community service as a way to be involved in their communities and nation. The voting booth was simply not seen as a place to effect change and campaigns were not doing anything to change that mindset.

As with any constituency group, campaigns must contact young people at their doors and where they hangout if they want to engage them as voters. Campaigns should continue to use new media approaches such as participating in the MTV online dialogue. However, research and recent history both tell us that these tools alone will not actually get young people to the polls. Such techniques may excite or inform them about a given candidate but they will not, by themselves, secure the youth voting bloc necessary to win unless campaigns also engage them personally at their homes and hangouts.

In 2006 some successful youth voting outreach examples included Representative Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania, Representative Harry Mitchell of Arizona and Senator John Tester of Montana. These campaigns had field plans that included young people, utilized new media outreach to broadcast their message, and partnered with youth groups who had experience in turning out young voters. And, as those campaigns testify, that increased voter turnout among young people was the margin in their victories.

While capturing the youth vote is not easy, it is doable if candidates target young voters, listen to them, talk with them about issues they care about and treat them like any other constituency group they are trying to secure in order to help them win. When campaigns do this, when they treat young people as voters in messaging and outreach both, young people reward their effort with their time, money and votes.


Jane Fleming Kleeb is the Executive Director of the Young Voter Pac which helps Democratic candidates and State Parties win with the 18-35 year old vote through endorsements, on-the-ground support, training, strategy and money. She is a regular on Fox and MSNBC. In her spare time, Jane is working on a cookbook for people recovering from eating disorders at http://www.eatingpolitics.com.

Are you feeling presidential?

An article in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution details the popular social networking website MySpace's plans to launch a new reality television show entitled "Independent." Throughout the series, MySpace users will be able to vote on which of the show's contestants--chosen by video submissions to MySpace--would be the presidential candidate that best represented "the collective voice of Americans." Though the contestants aren't seasoned politicians, they will be advised by national politicians and operatives. The winner of the final virtual election will win $1 million, but he or she must either donate the prize to a real candidate or political action committee, or invest it into a personal run for the White House. Though the show hasn't been picked up by a major broadcaster, its producers, who include Mark Burnett of "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" fame, hope the series will air in Spring 2008.

So, how many of you are running for president now?

Which Candidate Are You "Friends" With?

According to data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 37% of the adult population, or roughly 75 million Americans, used the internet as a resource for the 2004 election. 18% of registered voters listed the internet as their primary source of information, a number that is up 7% from data compiled for the 2000 election. Uses for internet listed by the survey included things like discussing candidates through e-mail, getting news and information on candidates, volunteering time and donating money to campaigns. (For more info check this out.)

No one uses the internet quite like the nation's young people. With the rise of Facebook, YouTube, AIM, and MySpace, young people more then ever are using the internet to communicate with peers and voice their opinions. A survey conducted by the Harvard IOP found that an astonishing 82% of students at four-year colleges and 62% of non-college 18-24 year olds had been on Facebook in a two day period. Of those with Facebook pages, 41% say they have used Facebook to promote a political candidate, event or idea.

Taking note of this growing trend, candidates now use the sites to help with their campaigns. All of the major 2008 candidates have set-up MySpace pages that are being used both to help get their name out but also to give their campaigns a more personal feel.

While there’s no way to predict the impact the internet will have in the 2008 election, it can only be assumed that the internet will play some type of role in the selection of our future president.

Reality TV Meets Politics

Drawing on the success of shows like FOX's American Idol and NBC's America’s Got Talent, reality TV producer Mark Burnett has teamed up with popular online peer-to-peer social netorking site MySpace to create a television show that seeks out the best new political voice for the youth of America. In the show, titled Independent, contestants are challenged to tackle issues in order to display their political ideals and beliefs. The show's viewers then offer reviews and present more challenges to the contestants by either calling in to the show or through their MySpace pages.

The winner of the show will get $1 million to be put towards either their own 2008 presidential campaign bid or to give to an organization centered on issues relevant to the nation’s youth.

Burnett hopes that Independent will help “to discover in a big way what America really thinks and bring to light the issues that are closest to those who now finally have a chance to be heard."

Though not yet picked up by a network, the creators hope to begin airing the show sometime in early 2008.

YouTube, MySpace and 11 Other Sites Off Limits to Soldiers

Effective today, the Military is banning YouTube, MySpace and other sites on all its networks and computers according to a memo by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander. The policy is being implemented to protect information and reduce drag on the department's networks, according to Bell.

Unfortunately, many of the blocked sites are used by soldiers to keep up with their family and friends back home. While soldiers will be able to access the sites from their own computer, the Associated Press points out that DOD computers and networks "are the only ones available to many soldiers and sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The sites covered by the ban are the video-sharing sites YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos, and FileCabi, the social networking sites MySpace, BlackPlanet and Hi5, music sites Pandora, MTV, and 1.fm, and live365, and the photo-sharing site Photobucket.