Where Have All the Campaign Events Gone?

Task: compile a list of presidential primary events that would appeal to young adults aged 18 to 29 in the greater Boston area. Given that this age group is social and that New Hampshire (which falls within the geographical limits of my search) is a haven for political junkies, sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

My first intuition was to search on each candidate's website - all 17 of them - and find events in the Boston area. This strategy proved to be relatively fruitless for one of three reasons: the website did not have a link, page or section devoted to campaign events; the website had an events page but was either outdated or only included events up to four days in the future; or the events page had hundreds of events added by supporters and comprised mostly house parties and postcard-writing sessions.

I checked CNN, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Boston Now, boston.com - nothing, or at least nothing that I hadn't already found.

The pages with the most events were the front-runners: Clinton and Obama, mostly. Not too much in the way of Republican events, though. This gives rise to the age-old debate over whether the richest candidates always win simply because they have the most resources and staff members to publicize their campaign efforts. But that's another story for another day.

The journalist in me began to dig deeper; instead of trying to find the seemingly nonexistent events, I tried to figure out why there were no events catered toward the under-30 piece of the voting public pie.

This demographic has been notoriously absent in the polls on voting day, although numbers are rising. Are candidates simply ignoring them because they get better results from more politically involved age groups? Or are young adults less apt to vote because candidates ignore the issues most important to them? Or is it something else altogether? Eventually, this age group will become middle-aged and senior citizens and today's voting majority will no longer be around to dominate the political scene.

It seems like a good strategy (to me at least, although politics confuses me more than quantum physics) that candidates begin to address this age group and the issues important to them in order to build support for the future.

Well, maybe they are trying. Even though most of the events in the Boston/New Hampshire area are fundraisers, house parties and stamp-licking sessions - which may or may not appeal to young adults - candidates have found a new way to reach out to young voters: cyberspace.

Most of the candidates' websites included a section with links to Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other online social networking sites that seem to be popular among the college crowd. Candidates have profiles and host events through these sites, and supporters can create or join groups and participate in discussion forums about their favorite candidate.

Our survey asked young adults in the Boston area what they think is the most effective way for candidates to reach their age group: campus or citywide events, online events or debates, or both? The answer was split pretty evenly into thirds.

So while some young adults may be encouraged to vote by online resources, others still prefer to see the candidate in person or feel that the candidate cares enough to visit their corner of the country.

But the category of 18 to 29 is very split when it comes to online networking. When Facebook was launched in 2004, today's 29-year-olds were well out of college, while today's 18-year-olds were freshmen in high school. As the Internet continues to grow, so might online support for candidates. But a good, old-fashioned pep rally never hurt anybody either.