Our friends at Blunt Radio bring us scenes from Primary Day, 2012 in New Hampshire, where Mitt Romney was declared the winner. They visited the campaign offices of Republican candidates, some empty and others bustling. Check them out below!

Mitt Romney's campaign office is busy and full of staffers. No interviews permitted.

Rick Perry's office was relatively empty, as the candidate is focusing on South Carolina. 

Our friends at Blunt Radio took to the streets of New Hampshire today to capture sights and sounds from Primary Day. Check out a series of chalk messages from the Ron Paul campaign below. All messages were written on Elm Street in Manchester, NH.

Taken outside the Radisson Hotel.

This story originally aired on NPR's All Things Considered, 1/10/12.

Ike Sriskandarajah, Turnstyle News

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Exeter, New Hampshire -- If campaigning for Republican Presidential candidates in New Hampshire sounds like hard work, try going door to door on primary weekend for Jesus.

That’s what Elder Taylor Bayles is doing in Exeter, New Hampshire. “Elder” is a religious title the Mormon Church gives this missionary even though he’s just 20 years old. His canvassing partner is Elder Kyle Hodson, who’s 21. The two blonde, conservatively dressed young men acknowledge that they tend to attract attention when they go door to door. “Generally, walking around New Hampshire in a suit and tie with a name tag makes you in the spotlight,” said Bayles.

They keep a rigorous schedule, sometimes from 10 in the morning to nine at night, talking to people about the Mormon faith. But in the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, there’s something else people want to talk to them about: who they are voting for.

“It’s definitely a topic of conversation that comes up quite a bit,” said Hodson. “Two people within just a couple minutes of each other asked us the exact same question. They just yelled at us, ‘Huntsman or Romney?’”

By Jacqueline Cuddeback, Turnstyle News

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- I’ve lived in Iowa my whole life, and as a senior political science major at Coe College, I understand the importance of being politically active. But the moves made recently by President Obama and Congress, coupled with some of the outrageous statements made by mainstream Republican candidates, have me nervous as the Iowa caucus fast approaches; whom can I vote for? Not a president who believes it is OK to assassinate American citizens overseas, or a president who would repeal all of the progress made to protect the environment and the rights of gays. Third party?  Or just don’t vote – a show of no confidence, like the Occupy Movement was doing?  Then I realized there was a third option.

I worried about breaking the news to my friend Reid, a hard core liberal. “Don’t be mad at me,” I told him, “but I’m afraid I have to vote Republican this coming election.” “Me too,” said Reid. “I’m sure not voting for Obama -- I’m voting Ron Paul.”
My jaw dropped.

Reid said that although he supported Obama in 2008, he has followed the Texas Congressman for years. He was the only candidate he felt hadn’t lied to us and has the voting record to prove it.  “And I’m sorry, I don’t want to be declared a terrorist and ‘disappear’ in the middle of the night,” Reid said. Reid and I had been involved in the Occupy Cedar Rapids movement together, me silently documenting, him actively participating. I knew he was angry about Obama’s new budget plan. I just never expected him to lean Republican.

Reid demonstrates what John Della Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard’s Institute for Politics, told Turnstyle about our generation. This election season, the so-called 18 - 29 year-old Millennials are up for grabs, and Ron Paul has all the right moves. We might align with liberal ideas on paper, but in Iowa, the earliest state in the nation to caucus for presidential candidates, it’s Ron Paul who will get young voters out of the house to caucus in sub-freezing weather. “There is a chord clearly that Ron Paul is striking with young people,” said Volpe. “It’s just his incredible authenticity, and a focus on this libertarian, independent streak that young people have always had. And he’s also putting an effort behind it.”

This story was originally broadcast on 12/4/11 on WABE-FM, Atlanta.

By Stanley Stewart

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Watching the Occupy movement in Atlanta, I thought to myself:  “Finally. My generation’s social and political apathy is over - people are taking a stand!” But weeks have turned into months, and I can’t help but think that nothing is really getting accomplished. I was a participant in Occupy Atlanta’s protests when they began. Each rally was full of loud bullhorns bursting through the air and there were hand-written signs of defiance for all to see. My favorite sign read “Money Talks, 99% Walks.” My heart swelled with pride, as I’ve been waiting for a movement like this to spur Americans into action - especially youth like me.
 
But now, I’ve changed my mind about the best approach to make change. Camping out in a park for months on end and countless marches aren’t exactly ending economic inequality. Instead of taking to the streets, people should be taking to the election booths.  We should occupy our legislators’ mailboxes and telephone lines, not the parks.  I turn 18 next year and I can’t wait to vote. I think my ballot will make more of a difference than marching down Peachtree Street. Rather than filling up space at a city jail, it seems my fellow protestors and I should put our energy towards electing officials to occupy seats in congress and city hall who will make the changes we want. 

Previously on WABE:

* Why Make Impossible Beauty Goals?

* Family Ties And Mom's New Baby

Read more...

President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that low-priority immigration offenders would not be a focus for deportation, according to the Los Angeles Times. This applies to DREAM Act-eligible students and people who have family ties in the country.

The statement comes at a critical moment for President Obama, as Republican candidates begin competing with him for the Latino vote in November. When President Obama spoke at the National Council de la Raza last month, he was criticized for his administration's slow progress on immigration reform.

He also supported the recent Secure Communities legislation, which has been seen with skepticism by pro-immigrant advocates. The law allows local and state police to hand over fingerprints and citizenship information for people they arrest to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The law has been criticized for scaling up the deportations of people who committed minor offenses. States are also unclear about whether turning over fingerprints is voluntary or mandatory. The Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law are currently involved in a lawsuit against this legislation.

President Obama's recent announcement means that many cases up for deportation will be examined in a new light -- to decide whether they are "low-priority." If the person is granted low-priority status, they might even be eligible for work permits, the LA Times reports.

The votes have been cast.  We can stop predicting what young voters will do at the polls and look at the numbers.

The New York Times had access to nationwide surveys conducted by Edison Research and the Associated Press, which showed that voters under 30 preferred Democrats overall, and they were the only age group to do so.  The youngest voters, ages 18 - 29, voted 60% Democratic which is equal to the percentage of voters over the age of 65 that voted Republican.  

Six out of ten white voters aligned with Republicans, according to the exit polls, while Hispanic and Asian American voters aligned with Democrats, especially on immigration reform issues. The New York Times points out that in addition to young voters, this ethnic demographic is one of the fastest growing constituencies in the United States.

While mainstream media sources report that the youth vote was missing from yesterday’s election, College Democratic and Republican leaders insist that young people came out and did their part.

According to Alejandra Salinas, President of the College Democrats of America (CDA), “Young people were engaged in this election.  In California and Massachusetts we made sure that key Democrats got elected.  A lot of people I talked to were more motivated than ever before.”

She believes that the Republican swing in the House of Representatives had mostly to do with peoples’ reaction to the economy.

Rob Lockwood, Communications Director for the College Republicans National Committee (CRNC), also thinks that the youth played a big role in the election.  “We launched Operation Red November, placing concentrated efforts in five borderline states: Nevada, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In those states alone, students volunteered over 55,000 hours. The efforts in these states played a very significant role and made a huge difference.  Just through word of mouth, representatives on these campuses said people were excited to vote,” he said.

The CRNC launched a website called www.ourtab.org that has information about the national debt.  Lockwood said he was happily surprised at how people were using it.  “On campuses we saw that the website was being used in educational ways.  Students told me they used the website in class presentations, and that their professors mentioned the website as innovative political advertising.”

Salinas said that now that the House of Representatives has a Republican majority, she hopes the Democrats and Republicans can work together for student issues. “The Democrats will continue to advocate for student issues like health care and student loan reform. The Democrats are the party for students.  We hope that now that there’s a bi-partisan Congress, Republican leaders will stand with Democrats to advocate for student rights.”  

The youth turnout at the polls yesterday was... disappointing.  That is if you were a Democrat banking on the youth vote.  18 - 29 year-olds did not show up for Democrats in the numbers the party leaders wanted.

In 2008, young people came out to vote in higher numbers than ever before.  President Obama’s message of hope and change succeeded in reaching 18 - 29-year-olds in 2008, as did his modern, digital campaign strategies.  So why didn’t those voters turn up in the same size force yesterday?

For instance, why didn’t the young people who supported California’s Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana show up to vote for it?

An article from the Washington Square News made the point that presidential elections are just more exciting. Students were quoted saying that presidential elections are big and glamorous, whereas there is no central figure in midterm elections to generate excitement. Students suggested that voting is very connected to the faces behind the names, saying that voting for President Obama was making history, but voting for “two grey haired senators” was not as sexy.

However, a study conducted by the Harvard University Institute of Politics (IOP) said that the youth energy glimpsed in the 2008 election is something definite.  According to the study, since Sept. 11 there has been a, “political and civic re-awakening among this generation, which we call Millenials.” Michael Hurta, president of the University Democrats at University of Texas told Fox News that numbers at the polls at his University were still higher than in 2006. 

Just because youth didn’t stampede the polls yesterday, doesn’t mean that the election issues aren’t relevant to the Millenials.  The Harvard University IOP conducted a survey in the spring of 2010 which found, “Given the state of the economy, nearly half of college students today question their ability to stay in school.  Almost half of all four-year undergraduates (45%) and nearly two-thirds of community college students (64%) are concerned about staying in college.”

The IOP also found in a poll that young Republicans showed more enthusiasm for participating in yesterday’s elections than young Democrats with, “41% of Republicans planning on voting, compared to 35% of Democrats and 13% of Independents.”

Midterm elections are here!  Still don’t know who or what to vote for? The Midterm Youth Debate took place yesterday, which featured Democratic and Republican party leaders answering questions posed by youth. The debate airs tonight at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on youthdebate.org.

Anthony Tedesco of Portable Heroes is founder and producer of the Presidential Youth Debates, and has put together a debate every year since 1996.  Since then, he’s had every presidential candidate participate.  The questions for these debates are submitted by people ages 13 - 30.  “In every debate we’ve included future voters. If you get them engaged at an early age, they are more likely to become lifelong voters,” said Tedesco.  

These are the issues that the party leaders responded to:
·      The two budget items they wouldn't cut
·      Three issues they would work in cooperation with their opposing party to resolve
·      What they will do to ensure equality and civil rights are taken seriously
·      When young Americans can expect to retire
·      What went wrong with the Gulf oil spill and how we can make sure it never happens again
·      When each party thinks we will move out of Iraq and Afghanistan
·      How both parties will work together to solve the health care crisis

You can view a written transcription of Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine’s response to the question of civil rights and the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy here.

Tedesco said, “We reached out in non-partisan ways to solicit the questions - through Rock the Vote, youth media organizations, and student associations.  It’s important to tie politics to something that youth care about, and give them the information they need to make a decision.”