While Republicans invest thousands in college organizing, the Democratic Party takes young people for granted. Our generation is cynical about government and political parties, and too many young progressives fight single issue campaigns –AIDS, sweatshops, the environment, peace, intellectual property rights – instead of working to put a progressive party in government.

Maybe that is because our party doesn't seem too progressive anymore. So College Democrats, the messengers of the Democratic Party, are ignored. We are left with a national party whose messengers are failing to communicate in the fastest growing medium.

So begins an email I got from the Swarthmore College Democrats. As the proprietor of a blog, especially one with an email address on the front page, I get a lot of emails. This one, however, got my attention.

Check out the extended entry for more.

As the Swarthmore Democrats plainly state, College Democrat groups are usually really boring. I, and many of my friends were both liberal and politically active in school. None of us, however, actually got involved with the College Democrats. They seemed buttoned up and boring. (And hey, let me tell you, if they were buttoned up at Macalester, I cannot imagine what they are like at Swarthmore. Be afraid.)

It seems sort of obvious that the Democratic Party needs a makeover, especially in how it presents itself. With groups like Drinking Liberally, people are finally understanding that not only is it OK to be liberal, it is OK to do so while having a beer, having fun, etc. This is the vein that that Swarthmore Dems are trying to tap into.

Culturally, I am sure most kids at Swarthmore vote Democratic, at least in the Presidential election. I am sure a lot of them also are progressive in their cultural and social spheres. As the organizers of Garnet Donkey seem to get, it is through this culture, through these social tendencies, through beer and Jon Stewart that you can engage otherwise uninvolved kids.

I was a skeptic of the power of the internet to change anything. But a small site like Garnet Donkey gives a great example of how the internet can be used in a positive way to organize people. I look forward to following it in the upcoming years.

The full email is below.

The websites of College Democrats chapters are usually pretty boring. Many are stale lists of upcoming events updated maybe once a month. Why does it matter? More and more, young people are turning to the internet for their news and information. College Dems chapters need a solid internet presence more than the national party does!

While Republicans invest thousands in college organizing, the Democratic Party takes young people for granted. Our generation is cynical about government and political parties, and too many young progressives fight single issue campaigns –AIDS, sweatshops, the environment, peace, intellectual property rights – instead of working to put a progressive party in government.

Maybe that is because our party doesn't seem too progressive anymore. So College Democrats, the messengers of the Democratic Party, are ignored. We are left with a national party whose messengers are failing to communicate in the fastest growing medium.

There is an answer:
www.garnetdonkey.com – the internet home of the Swarthmore College Young Democrats.

When designing Garnet Donkey, we asked ourselves, what makes busy, overworked college students visit a College Dems website?

It needs to be interesting – so we recruited eight bloggers with different points of view to talk about different issues. It needs to make it easy to take action – so we regularly post opportunities to volunteer right up there on the main page.
It needs to emphasize that we are Swarthmore students first and messengers of the party second; that we care about the same progressive issues as our fellow students, even those ignored by the national party. So we named it Garnet Donkey, after the Swarthmore school color.

Finally, we decided it needs to be fun. So we added liberal doses of humor and included links to games, videos, and other tools of the procrastinating trade. Plus we quote Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. A lot.

Rethinking college organizing; renewing the Democratic message; trying new ideas, and making activism fun again: these are the guiding principles that have turned the Swarthmore Democrats from a group of a few committed students into the largest progressive organization on campus in three short years. They are the principles behind Garnet Donkey.