Some good news in the debate over youth voting came out of the primaries yesterday. This from The Fix at the WaPo:

Good news for the country too. 18-29 years olds are set to vote in greater numbers than over 65 year olds, maybe even this year, which means a new generation of engaged citizens is emerging. A strong democracy needs all its citizens to engage. It would even better if more young people took their parents to vote and vice versa. The strongest indicator of a young person voting is whether a peer, friend or family member has asked them to. I'm sure it also influences other generations.

In Indiana today young students and nuns, as old as 98, were denied their right to vote because of the strict and vote-suppressing photo ID laws in the state.  The Supreme Court upheld the law in a split decision last week. 

A dozen nuns in their eighties and nineties, barely able to make across the street to vote, were told they could not vote because they didn't have accepted ID.  Four floors of nuns back at the convent for retired nuns couldn't produce ID either, so they didn't try.  According to the AP:

I think I voted today.  I know I was excited about voting this morning in Virginia. A presidential primary that counts!  I touched the screen on the slick-looking machine like the one in the photo.  But who knows what happened?  A few years ago the same machines flipped every 100 votes for a Republican candidate over to the Democrat.  My own computers at work and home flip out every once in awhile.  Who knows what's happening with these voting machines?  I hope I voted today.

Next Tuesday, February 12, District of Columbia citizens will have an opportunity to join their neighbors in Virginia and Maryland and vote in DC's presidential primary. But, unlike their neighbors and every other American in the 50 states, they will not have an opportunity to vote for a representative in the U.S. Congress.

-- got to go - more later...here's a photo of the DC Voting Rights march last April.

Pizza Hut has started running ads in early primary states of Nevada and South Carolina that feature two young men eating pizza. What's the problem you ask? Well, the script is a weird and contorted dialogue that starts out by complaining about all the "change" the presidential candidates are campaigning on (by now most major candidates are taking on the mantle). Mike Connery at Future Majority blogged on this wondering,

Being kind, it seems like this is an attempt at supporting youth turnout. But why the infantile line "I could use more change in my pocket," and the flimsy staging of one guy saying he won't vote, and then the other saying "you should" before they scarf down some pizza? People I've talked to about this agree that this either a confusing attempt to make the most of the elections season to sell pizza or a weird effort to increase turnout that just backfires.

In the end it's clearly all about pizza, not about recognizing the importance of the change that young people are creating by turning out in record numbers and supporting diverse candidates.

We are entering a year where politics seems to be experiencing a renaissance of civic values and engagement by many groups in American society. I hope that as we approach Super Tuesday and beyond, corporations like Pizza Hut will send a positive, clear message. I don't mind if they sell pizza while they're at it, but just don't screw up the message, people.