He's the youngest person ever elected to the Democratic National Committee, he's listed in Wikipedia, and he's been interviewed by the BBC .
DNC member Jason Rae is a 21 year old from Rice Lake, a student at Marquette University, and is attending his second national convention as a delegate. This time, he is a “superdelegate” committed to Barack Obama, and is also the chair for the DNC Youth Council. Will younger voters actually turn out? Rae says the primaries were encouraging. “We saw the number of youth voters double, triple and even, in some states, quadruple,” says Rae. “All of the country we've seen young voters turning out . . . and participating.”
While the war in Iraq is important, Rae thinks economic issues will be what sends young people to the polls in November: “they want to make sure that they're able to provide for their families, and have adequate insurance that will cover them. They want to make sure that they'll be able to pay off their student loans,” says Rae. “They realize that the person they elect is not just going to decide policy for the next fours, but is going to decide policy for the next several decades.”
Rae says he'll be very busy with the DNC Youth Council during the convention in Denver, and while he'd like to see Barack Obama at one of those events, he thinks the Illinois Senator will be too busy with other convention business.
