By Timothy C. Davis
Staff Writer

From 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. on Friday, Broadway at the Beach's Celebrity Square will play host to an event called Rock Out Your Vote. The free throwdown is being put on by the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce to raise awareness for voter registration among college students, other young folk in the area, and the rest of the non-traditional (in Horry County's case, mostly younger-40) voting public.

As part of the festivities, to take place under a big tent in the middle of Celebrity Square, people can eat free food provided by Celebrity Square businesses, listen to live bands including Five Points (at 7 p.m.) and Not Yet Rated (at 8:30 p.m.), cut a rug, and, last but not least, register to vote.

The whole thing is being presented as equal parts party and political event - two things that, incidentally, with each passing year, seem to get closer and closer to being the same thing.
There will be representatives from Horry County Democrats on hand, as well as folks from Horry For Hillary; the Barack Obama, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich campaigns; the South Carolina Young Republicans; and representatives from the Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee campaigns (with others possibly to come).

Palmetto State institutions Coastal Carolina University, the University of South Carolina, Clemson University, Francis Marion University, College of Charleston and Horry Georgetown Technical College will have information booths on site, and the Chamber will give said groups $1 for each student who registers to vote. To boot, there is a booth for kids to begin to learn the voting process, and, were that not enough, even a booth manned by us good folks here at Weekly Surge.

Holly McMillan, Director of Festivals & Special Events for the Chamber, says that this event will be the last one before the November elections that the MBACC is involved in.

"All of the clubs in Celebrity Square will be open," says McMillan. If you come to the event, you will get your hand stamped and you can then get into all of the clubs for free.

"Although there is a greater interest that's being garnered by the young voters, a lot of them don't take that next step to register to vote, for many reasons," McMillan says. "Either they don't know where to register, or don't have the time, that sort of thing. And so we hope, since the S.C. numbers are a little down on that demographic, we thought we'd try to have a non-partisan, free fun event with bands and food and information booths, a kind of place where we could get young people's interest. We were lucky to be able to put it in a venue like Celebrity Square - where everybody goes anyway in that demographic, it seems - put it right in there, make it easy, make it convenient, make it fun, and get them registered at the same time."

There will be "no candidates, but representatives from most of the campaigns," in attendance, she continues. (As far as state and local politicians dropping by to do a little stumping, McMillan says it is possible, but that the Chamber won't likely know until Friday morning.)

So yeah: y'all should come (did we mention it's free?). But don't just take our word for it. There are plenty of reasons to come on out and get involved in the party-cum-political process - the least of which is simple: you can help change the world. Can you say that about the last kegger you attended?

We've all probably seen politicians running for national office intermingling with generations X and Y - think Bill Clinton laying down some sweet saxophone on the "Arsenio Hall Show." Think CNN's two recent YouTube debates. Think CNN's affiliation with Facebook. Think MTV's town hall meetings, part of the network's get-out-the-youth-vote initiative, "Choose Or Lose." Yes, politicians everywhere are listening to young voters, who, thanks to lots of media support, are casting the votes, raising their voices, and getting involved.

In years past, many politicians didn't spend a whole lot of time worrying about the youth vote, thinking that, outside of a few college-age Young Republicans and Young Democrats and the Rock the Vote organization, there's not exactly a concerted push by young people, for young people, to mobilize them to the polls on Election Day.

Why? The reasons are myriad, but one of the most frequently mentioned complaints is that politicians only give lip service to the youth vote, preferring to lay their fortunes with their carefully-polled, prefab constituencies, thinking that a) the youth vote isn't going to help much anyway, or b) may actually hurt their chances of getting into/staying in office.

But have things changed? Think about the aforementioned YouTube and Facebook, perhaps the two hottest new political inventions of the last 20 years. Think of the concept of the blog - once looked upon with disdain by politicians, they've now become such a huge part of the political process (if there's ever been a voice of the people, it's the blog) that candidates now hire bloggers to post their opinions.

CNN's YouTube debates have drawn the two highest primary debate numbers ever: the Republican YouTube debate on November 28 attracted 4.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched cable TV debate in the history of the medium. CNN broke its own record with the debate, which it set Nov. 15 with its Democratic debate in Las Vegas. (That broadcast pulled in 4.036 million viewers.)

"Campaigns are finally reaching out and talking to young people about issues they care about such as Iraq, education, jobs, the economy and heath care," says Chrissy Faessen, Communications Director for Rock The Vote. "As a result, we are voting in record numbers."

As the first Southern state to hold its primary elections, young voters have a real chance to make a difference in this Saturday's S.C. Republican Primary and in the Democratic primary to be held on January 26. Republican voters in South Carolina have picked the eventual party nominee in every primary contest since 1980. For Democrats, South Carolina is often an early test of candidates' ability to win votes from black voters, who make up about half the state's Democratic primary voters and usually prove reliable as a sample of larger voting trends.

But why should young folks even bother to vote? Why spend one of the few days most of us students and working stiffs have off to go down to the local polling station and pull levers?

Paul Peterson, a professor of politics at Coastal Carolina University, says the answer is simple: don't like your options come November? Consider that you had a chance to make a preemptive strike way back in January.

"Politics profoundly influences (young people's) lives, whether they know it or not," says Peterson. "And in most cases, they do not know it. For example, young people give little thought to Social Security. Yet whatever changes we make in Social Security will affect not simply their retirement, but also what they pay in payroll taxes. Mitt Romney's economic policies would likely be quite different from John McCain and certainly quite different from what we would see from Mrs. (Hillary) Clinton or (Barack) Obama or (John) Edwards. That, in turn, can have an impact on their immediate economic future (and possibly their long-term economic future as well). Coming out of college in the job market of the Reagan era or the Bill Clinton era was quite different from - and better than - coming out in the job market of the 1970s.

"The list of relevant concerns for the young goes on beyond this, but this should give you something of an idea as to why the interests of young voters are very much at stake in this election," Peterson says. "And they are very much at stake in the primary season, not simply the general election. People - both young and old -often complain about the choice they have in the general election. Well, those choices are being made right now."

Interestingly, these choices seem to be made, in ever-increasing numbers, by young people. Obama's upset of Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses was spurred by an overwhelming youth vote in his favor. According to CNN exit polls, among 17- to 24-year-olds, Obama got 57 percent of the vote, the same percentage he received from 25- to 29-year-olds. He dipped to 42 percent in the 30- to 44-year-old demographic. Here, Clinton's numbers began to rise - in fact, in the 60-and-over category, she blew Obama out of the water.

In Iowa caucus exit polls for Republicans, young voters also made their presence felt. Seventeen- to 24-year olds boosted Internet sensation Ron Paul to a surprising third place finish in their voting demographic, beating Rudy Giuliani, McCain and Fred Thompson, and nearly toppling Romney, who finished second. "With the unprecedented turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire, 2008 is clearly the year young people are rocking the vote," says Faessen.

"In Iowa, youth turnout more than tripled, with 65,000 Iowans under the age of 30 participating in the caucuses," she says. "Nationwide turnout of 18 to 29-year-olds went up in both the 2004 and 2006 general elections, which is always encouraging."

However, despite South Carolina's "First in the South" primary status, Horry County and South Carolina rank down near the bottom as regards the number of registered youth voters.

In Horry County, there are 9,652 registered voters between the ages of 18 and 24, a total of 7.58 percent of the whole (127,189). In South Carolina as a whole, there are 217,152 voters 18-24. Taken from the overall state total of 2,243,922, this comes out to roughly 9.67 percent. (The national average is between 12 and 13 percent.)

While Horry County voters also trail the state average in 25 to 44-year-old registered voters (32.8 percent to 29.3 percent) and more or less equal the state average from ages 45-64 (37.6 percent), it's probably no surprise with so many retirees here that we beat the state average rather handily in the 65 plus category: 25.3 percent of Horry's registered voters fit the bill here, as opposed to 19.9 percent statewide.

Being home to both Horry-Georgetown Technical College and CCU doesn't necessarily suggest an advantage for folks such as Obama and Paul, Peterson cautions.

"Keep in mind that many of the students at Coastal Carolina are from out-of-state, and, if they are registered to vote at all, they are likely registered in their home states. There is also a great deal of political apathy among our students, even, oddly enough, among political science majors. I do see some excitement - in small numbers - for Obama (perhaps as a result of his appearance on campus last year) and a bit for Romney and Huckabee. But that is about it."

Whether or not Coastal Carolina students seem fired up, the smorgasbord of political activity here in town has created a mountain-sized (or, at least, a Mt. Myrtle- sized) buzz about town.

That buzz should soon rise into a high hum as three candidates, all of whom are, arguably, more well known nationally than any of the Republicans save perhaps Giuliani and McCain, hit the Palace Theatre on Monday for the Congressional Black Caucus Institute's Presidential Candidate's Debate.

Love 'em or hate 'em, Obama, Clinton and John Edwards are easily identifiable. The first is, quite obviously, a black man and a black man has never been elected U.S. president. The second is, also quite obviously, a woman - a woman who is married to another lightning rod, former President William Jefferson Clinton, and as we all know, a woman has never been commander-in-chief of our country either (at least not officially). The third is a hard-drawling populist who was born in this very state, something he doesn't easily let us forget. (He's less keen, of course, on reminding people he was John Kerry's choice for Vice President.)

Throw possible invitee and firebrand Dennis Kucinich into the mix, and you have the makings of a royal rumble in The Palace Theatre. Who will emerge the king...or queen? Like the rest of the knaves about this great land of ours, we'll just have to wait and see.

Whoever emerges as the victor, Congressman Jim Clyburn (D), a member of the U.S. House as well as the House Majority Whip for the 110th Congress, told Weekly Surge that he feels the debates held in Myrtle Beach will help affect local elections, and perhaps boost interest and turnout among younger and older voters alike.

"We are a political laboratory," says Clyburn. "South Carolina is a small, relatively affordable media market, and we have four distinct communities - there are small towns in Pee Dee, and manufacturing communities in the Piedmont. You can go down to the Lowcountry, with its medical facilities and tourism, or the Midlands, with its multitude of educational opportunities. It's a unique opportunity for a candidate to try out their message in a small laboratory. The way we respond here will have reverberations. There's opportunity here.

"I remember when Doug Wilder was running for Governor of Virginia. I may have been one of those people who said he couldn't get elected, but he did. No one gave Barack Obama any chance to elected to the U.S. Senate when he first did. In fact, he'd just lost a recent race for the House, against a man named Bobby Rush. But he won the primary, which no one said he would, and then he won the general election after that. So the point I'm making here is that things happen."

Clyburn says even national politics can have local benefits.

"I didn't even know it until I saw it in a media report that this will be the first year they've ever celebrated the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Myrtle Beach. This will be the first time ever. This means the debate for Myrtle Beach is having a positive impact on the race issue. That's what I want these primaries to be. That's what I want these debates to be. When we took the debate to South Carolina State (April 26), Google reported 1.3 million hits on the school's website. That fall they had an increase of 400 students that they weren't expecting, fueled by this debate. All of these things help us, as a state, move forward. They provide hope for young people. They draw young people into the process."

Inadvertently, perhaps, all the new technology - or at least the harnessing of that technology (text messaging, blogs, interactive sites such as Myspace and the like) by what has been typically an arrogant, vote-chewing machine that could really care less about dumb punk kids and their problems - has helped us all get a foothold into the political system.

Candidates can get their messages out directly to the people, without that pesky media getting in the way. The end user - i.e., the potential voter - can get all the information (and misinformation) he or she wants at the mere click of a mouse.

If you want to engage young America, politicians have learned, you must first learn the rules of engagement. After all, it's easier to speak the language of your new "BFF" when you know the right words to use.

More Voting Info Myrtle Beach Debate, Round II Primary Colors: Choose or Lose Behind the scenes at GOP Debate How to register to vote... At the Polls