FEDERICA VALABREGA
Observer Staff
April 9, 2008

Brennan Jones entered the press area at a rally for Sen. Barack Obama at American University in January with the nonchalance of a senior reporter —dressed up in a suit, his blond hair properly combed with gel, a press pass around his neck and handing out business cards that read “CEO for the Juvenile Political Association for Change.”

When asked why he was there, Jones answered questions with the knowledge and attitude of one who is a politician at heart, yet he is only 12.

“I am appalled to what the Bush administration did with No Child Left Behind,” Jones said. “We support Obama publicly and we are involved to show people that kids care about true issues.”

He calls his association JPAC and from its headquarters — his room in Falls Church, Va. — he networks with 20 more 8th-graders from California, South Carolina and Illinois to reach a common goal — advocating for political change.

JPAC began in November 2006 and stemmed from an elementary school history assignment that entailed writing an essay on “what was going on in the world,” Jones said.

Photo by FEDERICA VALABREGA.
Executive members of JPAC Manuel Guto (left), Brennan Jones (center) and Courtland Jacoby (right) discuss politics in front of a fire.

“I just realized there was so much that we needed to fix and that we could have made a difference even if we were kids and stuff,” he said. “I felt kinda obligated and that is how JPAC got started.”

While Jones calls himself “abnormal but in touch with normality,” his dedication and interest in politics at such a young age is not uncommon among other young kids who, having lived in the shadows of their teenage siblings, have embraced the same enthusiasm, according to Kathryn Montgomery, author of the book “Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet.”

After decades of declining youth participation in politics, recent years have shown unprecedented turnouts of the youth vote. It is normal for younger kids to be picking up on that, said Montgomery.

According to the latest survey from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, more than three million young Americans voted on Super Tuesday this year, surpassing the turnout for 2004.

“I think there is a kind of sea change that we are seeing,” she said. ”I see a growing interest in civic education by the older youth, but they affect their counterpart, no question in my mind. If 18-year-olds are interested in politics their siblings are interested too, it is part of the online culture.”

Whether because of the news media’s influence or the growing power of nonprofit organizations fostering civic education in schools, such as Kids Voting USA, younger children’s interest in politics in this historic election is shaping to become a trend, said Montgomery

And this trend might make for a more engaging electorate in the next term’s elections, said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, a nonprofit research center in Maryland.

“I don’t know of any data on ages 9 to 15. That age is almost always left off surveys of civic participation,” he said. “Anecdotally, I think that children are quite interested in this election – at least in the D.C.-metro area. Interest during childhood probably predicts participation in adulthood.”

Despite their diverse backgrounds, states and party preferences, these kids have found their own original ways to demonstrate interest in the political arena at such a young age.

It took only a few months for Jones, JPAC Vice President Manuel Guto, and Senior Writer Cortland Jacoby, also 12, to go from selling origami during an after-school program to raise money for the Red Cross to help Tsunami victims in Indonesia to having their own Web site, entirely designed by Guto and paid for by Brannan’s grandmother Onzell Kidd, who in exchange asks the kids to advertise her customized homemade cakes on the site.

Photo by FEDERICA VALABREGA.
“Lads for McCain” Sam Saunders and David Benko smile for the camera.

But the major focus of JPAC is lobbying to congressmen, such as John Yarmuth, D-Ky., and Baron Hill, D-Ind., on issues such as education, the national debt, saving Darfur and the environment, which the group is particularly passionate about.

“I met the two congressmen on a plane, I asked them questions and got an interview and then got another interview,” said Jones.

“This is very typical of the way Brannan does things,” said his mother, Susan Kidd. “We were on a shuttle at [Reagan National Airport] and there were two guys in suites and Brannan said to me: ‘They have got congressional pins on. I am going to ask them some questions.’ He just started talking to them and the guys gave him their phone numbers and invited him for a tour [of Capitol Hill].”

Jones and the members of JPAC are some of a number of kids who show interest in politics at such a young age, but the phenomenon seems to have transcended beyond the D.C. area, according to Montgomery, who said she believes the whole excitement in the younger age group is compounded by the “Obama factor” and the growing availability of networking online, which makes even the younger ones that much more engaged in this election.

According to an article published in Time Magazine, the appeal of the Democratic candidate to the youth vote in the 2008 Iowa caucus was a record hit. While participant numbers for Democrats rose 90 percent from 2004, youth voting increased by 135 percent. Obama pulled in front of Sen. Hillary Clinton by approximately 20,000 votes; 17,000 of those came from youth voters.

But Sen. Obama’s charisma is not only appealing to the voting-age group; the younger crowds are willing to volunteer for his campaign to help him gather some extra votes.

Neal Kornreich, 12, from Boulder, Colo., decided to volunteer as precinct captain for the Obama campaign because he wanted to raise people’s awareness for what he sees as a “charismatic spokesperson with interesting views on diplomacy with foreign countries,” he said.

While deciding between a career in politics and one as a marine biologist, Kornreich keeps himself busy knocking on people’s doors, soliciting Coloradoans to vote for Obama in his place since he is too young to do so himself. He also started the Colorado Kids for Obama’s blog, an interactive blog where young Colorado Obama fans can share their views. This way, Kornreich hopes to gather enough supporters and create something similar to JPAC.

“I guess I am a kid interested in politics … someone wanting to help out with this campaign and make a difference,” he said. “I spoke to people who were originally not going to attend the caucus or that were pro-Hillary and now they are voting for Obama. So even though I am 12, I can still do a lot for his campaign.”

Although Kornreich has not gathered a big group of followers except for his friend Gabe Triman who saw him wearing the Obama pin at school and asked how he could help out, he is still proud of having changed his mother’s view.

“Actually my mom was a Hillary supporter for a while, before I became an Obama supporter,” he said, giggling. “But I convinced her to change her mind.”

“Some of us have felt negative about the way things have happened [with this administration],” said Neal’s mother, Jeanette Kornreich. “So it has inspired a lot of adults to see kids care that much about their future and about this candidate.”

Jeanette Kornreich is not the only parent who has embraced her son’s growing interest for politics; Bruce Toland’s youngest daughter Aimee, 11, goes to Homecroft Elementary School in Duluth, Minn., and since she became involved in the Kids Voting USA’s civic education program she has begun sharing what she learns at the dinner table, making her family more curious every day.

Kids Voting USA is offered in certain schools around the United States. Its major interest is teaching kids the fundamentals about the American civic system so they will grow up with the habits of voting as a responsibility, according to John Barse, CEO of the Washington, D.C., headquarters.

And as shown by the result of the most recent study from Michael McDavitt of the University of Colorado, even though Kids Voting USA is meant to engage elementary school kids, the organization is also targeting parents to get them to vote more frequently.

“We know from the academic studies that have been done about Kids Voting that the turnout rate among adults in Kids Voting communities is 3 to 5 percent higher than in non-Kids Voting communities.” said Barse. “So the kids are teaching their parents.”

The program started in 1988 on the way back from a trip to Costa Rica when the founders learned that the voting turnout rate in the country was nearing 90 percent; Children accompanying their parents to the ballot box would develop a sense of civic responsibility and then would vote responsibly as adults, said Barse. Kids Voting USA was founded with the idea of making a difference in shaping the younger electorate.

So far Kids Voting USA has educated approximately 4 million 3rd- through 9th-graders, each year, all over the United States. They are hoping to see voter turnout grow even larger in the next 10 years, he said.

The teachings of Kids Voting USA vary from lectures on women’s suffrage in the United States to class activities focused on learning how to conduct polls to discussions on why the United States has a system of primary elections and why citizens should exercise their right to vote responsibly, explained Barse. They also hold mock elections where kids practice voting on model ballots.

For 15 minutes every morning, Aimee Toland listens to Carol Holm, a social studies teacher provided by Kids Voting USA, talking about why it’s important to express one’s opinion through voting.

“As our teacher was telling us if you don’t vote you are just making the bad people win,” said Toland. “That is why I am gonna vote when I grow up. So if we ever elect a bad president, I can say it is not because of me, because I voted and stuff.”

“I would vote for Clinton, because she will be the first woman elected and I want to see what will happen if we have a girl and stuff. Like we might, I don’t know like, she might make better choices and laws and stuff. And maybe she will get us out of Iraq,” she said.

But Democratic candidates are not the only ones to attract the younger kids’ interest in politics; Republican candidate John McCain has his supporters too, the “Lads for McCain” – two 9-year-olds from Gaithersburg, Md., who are the youngest volunteers in the campaign headquarters in Crystal City, Va.

David Benko and Samuel Saunders found great motivation in the whole political campaign by taking part in what David’s father, Ralph, refers to as the Gettysburg of the 2008 elections — the Republican primaries in Florida on Jan. 29, 2008.

The kids went to John McCain headquarters and called almost 100 people to persuade them to vote for the candidate, but they did not know how influential their effort would have been until a woman in Florida commented on how impressed she was with their contribution.

“There was this lady who I called and she asked me how old I was and when I said nine, she said just because I had the courage to call people she would vote for John McCain,” said Banko. “I yelled ‘yippie’ and then I said bye and thank you and then I hung up the phone.”

“So we tuned John McCain a little more popular,” added Saunders.