[LD22exec] Facebook & pres. campaign

[Debby Pattin]

Take a look at this article on how 'Facebook' is being used to activate 
the youth vote. We need to get a Facebook acct. set up for Thurston Co. 
Dems and the 22nd LD Dems and.........who knows how to do this?

Debby

Mobilized Online, Thousands Gather to Hear Obama

By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, February 3, 2007; Page A05

At his first rally since announcing his presidential exploratory 
committee, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) appealed yesterday for support 
from the young people who had mobilized for the event online.

The gathering of several thousand students at George Mason University 
in Fairfax underscored the potential power of online communities in the 
2008 campaign. Its genesis was a group created last summer on 
Facebook.com, a Web site frequented by college students who post 
profiles and assemble virtually.

Barack Obama for President in 2008 now has more than 50,000 members, 
and its founders have created an offline presidential draft committee, 
Students for Barack Obama.

"This is a remarkable achievement, a remarkable event that speaks to 
what young people can do when they put their minds together," said 
Obama, who is scheduled to officially announce his candidacy next 
Saturday in Springfield, Ill.

"No one is more cynical about politics than young people," he said, 
adding that they would not tolerate "a politics that's all about slash 
and burn, nastiness and negative ads, and name-calling and gridlock."

"One thing that's been incredibly clear throughout this whole process 
is his commitment and dedication to students and all the young people 
of America. He sees our generation as a critical part of his campaign," 
said Meredith Seagal, a junior at Bowdoin College in Maine and 
executive director of the draft committee.

Another Facebook group, Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack), 
was started less than three weeks ago and has already recruited 200,000 
members. "When you go on Facebook, as you always do, sign up," Farouk 
Olu Aregbe, who founded that group, told the crowd yesterday.

Jonathan Hicks, 19, a sophomore at American University, said he learned 
about the event through the Facebook group. "The majority of people to 
my knowledge found out through Facebook," he said. "Technology is 
changing. Politicians need to use it more, and more often, if they want 
to reach the youth of America today."

In his 25-minute speech, Obama promised that a better kind of politics 
-- led by young people -- is possible.

"You guys don't have much of a memory of the possibility of a politics 
that transcends and brings people together," he said. "[At] each and 
every juncture of our history, somebody has been audacious enough to 
say, 'We could do better.' . . . And more often than not, it's young 
people who've done it."

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