Tonight I'm excited to welcome my long-time friend, co-blogger, and political ally Michael Connery to Philadelphia. Mike, who founded Music for America and who blogs at Future Majority, where I also blog at times, will be at Robbins Bookstore from 6-7 talking about his new book Youth to Power: How Today's Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow's Progressive Majority. If you can't get the basic idea from the title, here's a description from Amazon:

Nearly half of today’s young voters under thirty—known as the Millennial Generation—identify themselves as Democrats, and they voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the 2006 election. Since youthful voting habits are a strong indicator of future party loyalty, we may be seeing the beginnings of a progressive resurgence in American politics.

In combination with their progressive ideals, the millennials are both civic-minded and entrepreneurial, having come of age in the safety of a post-Cold War world marked by an unprecedented revolution in technology. Using their unsurpassed social and technological skills, they have fostered a community spirit that is beginning to reverse the decades-long decline in social capital that was famously recorded by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone.

Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority examines how today’s young people are combining technology with a vigorous social spirit to revive progressive politics. In addition to recounting the history of youth politics since its emergence in the 1972 election, as well as showing where the movement still lags behind its more organized conservative counterpart, the book features interviews with many of the major figures in the youth political movement, and identifies strategies that the Democratic Party can use to capitalize on its new advantages with young voters. Youth to Power is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the political and cultural future of America.

If you want further illustration of the coming progressive wave, take a look at yesterdays Pew Research Center publication Generation Dem: The Party's Advantage Among Young Voters Widens. I'm going to write something about this over at Future Majority, but check out this chart and keep in mind that the best indication on what party a person will vote for is what party they identified with when they were from the ages of 16-30.

Hope to see you tonight!