Voter Turnout Among the Young Still Lags

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Friday, March 2, 2007, in Chicago. Obama blamed Bush Administration failings in Iraq for strengthening the strategic position of Iran, which he says must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) (Charles Rex Arbogast - AP)

Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said much interest in the 45-year-old candidate among younger voters, particularly the activity on the Internet, has sprung up independent of the campaign. "Our task as a campaign is to find ways to embrace this grassroots enthusiasm and channel it," he said.

Republican John McCain's outreach to younger voters includes establishing an online social network called McCainSpace where supporters can create their own pages and connect with one another. The 70-year-old Arizona senator chose to appear on "Late Night with David Letterman" to announce plans to make his presidential bid official.

Beneva Schulte, speaking for Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd's Democratic presidential campaign, said: "We're not waiting for them to come to us; we're finding them where they live. College students, unless they're overtly political, don't go to political Web sites and attend political rallies, so we're meeting them on college campuses at Harvard and Howard _ on Facebook and YouTube."

Democrat John Edwards is on a tour of college campuses, with stops in California this weekend.

Dean, a former Vermont governor, powered his way into contention in 2004 with his use of then-innovative blogs and other Internet tools to raise money and create a buzz around his candidacy, then faded after the primary voting started. "Today there are 55 million blogs, social networking tools available to the campaigns," Trippi said. "I envy them."

Not only do Facebook and other networks provide backers, they also are a source of campaign cash. On his Web site, Obama urges Facebook followers to make a small contribution.

Critical for the campaigns is whether they can keep the interest of young voters through the election. Trippi warned about the "self-fulfilling death spiral" in which in-house pollsters tell candidates that young people do not vote and urge the contender to focus on issues, including Social Security, that are favored by the elderly.

"The 18, 19-year-old worrying about college says, 'Hey, they're not talking about things that interest me,'" Trippi said.

Billy Valentine, 20, a sophomore at Franciscan College in Steubenville, Ohio, leads Students for Brownback, supporting Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback for the GOP nomination. Brownback, 50, is a favorite of religious conservatives.

"My main goal is to create a student army for his campaign," said Valentine, a native of Alexandria, Va. But he acknowledges young people do not vote in the same numbers as their elders.

"A big reason why students don't vote is they're not paying taxes yet," Valentine said. "They don't have thousands of dollars taken out of their salaries. Their parents are paying for their college education. They don't look at economics."

One issue that could motivate students is the effort to raise the minimum wage at both the federal level and in some states, Valentine said. He explained that Ohio's increase in the wage has prompted his college to cut back hours for student jobs and eliminate some employment.

"Once an issue really impacts a student directly, it motivates them," Valentine said.

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Associated Press writers Will Lester in Washington and Mike Glover in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.