Young Baysider Rocks The Vote

Spare a thought for young graduates in these anxious times. The sputtering economy is one of the worst in memory. With many of their peers serving overseas, military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have taken a personal note. And on top of that, leaving the ivy towers of academia brings no peace of mind. Jobs are scarce, tuition is at record highs and debt is through the roof.
If recent graduates ever doubted the impact of government policy on their lives, they seem to have learned their lesson now. Nearly 18 million 18- to 30-year-olds voted in 2000. And this Novembers presidential election figures to beat that number, with a historic 20 million young voters expected to cast ballots.
Young people like Baysides own Matthew Silverstein are prime examples of the new politically aware young voters. A 21-year-old student at Baruch Collegewhere he will shortly graduate with a bachelors degree in political scienceSilverstein already has a rsum stuffed with the kind of first-class political experience that will help him in years to come. Internships for Congressman Gary Ackerman and State Senator Toby Stavisky have been augmented by his tireless work to ensure that young voters register and vote in each election cycle. To that end, last year he started a bipartisan grassroots organization geared at young peopleLets Vote New Yorkand hes even found time to start and maintain his own Internet group.
"My goal is to get young people involved with the political system," said Silverstein. "Even though Im a Democrat, the group is strictly nonpartisan. I simply want people to register and then cast their vote for the candidate of their choice. Politicians need to know that young people vote and that their votes matter."
At a recent event of the Queens County Young Democrats, Silverstein met with the Rock The Vote campaignalso a nonpartisan effort to register young people to participate in the political processand he recognized that the aims of both organizations were similar. Almost immediately, they asked him to set up a Queens street team for the organization, which actively works to increase young voter turnout. Silverstein will be leading Rock The Votes first street team operation outside of Manhattan.
Initially founded in 1990 by the pop-culture monolith MTV to confront censorship and promote the right of free expression in the arts, Rock the Vote has expanded its operations to involve young people in every aspect of the political process and has been widely successful at registering college-age voters.
So, with a still-sputtering economy, the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, a nation-building effort in Iraq and an ongoing war on terrorism, has involving young people in the political process become any easier?
"What Ive noticed, working for politicians and campaigning on the streets, is that there is a lot of upset and anger at this administration over the direction the country has taken in the past four years," said Silverstein. "It seems to me that many young people are angry but they are also disaffectedthey still arent registering to vote in large numbers. Some are still very cynical about politicsits like a dirty word. They really dont believe their vote matters because of what happened in Florida in 2000, or they genuinely feel that their contribution will make no difference. Neither party really addresses young people in any serious way. Yet, the perception is that we dont vote, so were of little consequence."
What needs to happen, says Silverstein, is that we need to acknowledge that we have a serious problem; issues like tuition hikes and MTA fare hikes directly affect younger demographics tooand yet he feels that such obvious young-vote getters are still overlooked by both parties. The outreach to natural constituents, he believes, has been grudging or simply non-existent.
But all politics are local, he observes. "Councilmember Eric Gioia stands out as a lesson for career politicians in how to incorporate the grassroots to accomplish effective change. Hes a reminder that politics start at the grassroots and works its way up through the system. Hes a very effective example of how that works best."
Silversteins enthusiastic commitment to public life is so marked that a run for public office must be lurking around the corner. When asked, he takes a deep breath and then replies, "Its something I would like to do later on, when the time is ripe, when Ive garnered enough experience. Perhaps as a councilmember or an assemblymember or even at congress level. I would like to start lower down and see where it will take me. People ask me all the time, Why do you want to get involved with politics? I answer that I have been brought up in a family where people would talk politics. It was always there, I was brought up around it. Its the most natural thing in the world for me."