Declare Yourself

I've purposely stayed away from blogging about the upcoming election these last few months. This is my personal site, and while I have strong views on the candidates, I know that many readers do not feel the same way I do. So I've been trying to remain nonpartisan. Watching my first election since leaving life on the hill has been an interesting experience.

Throughout these months, I have constantly been impressed by the work of Declare Yourself, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign to empower and encourage every eligible American to register and vote in the presidential primaries and 2008 presidential election.

This is their most recent video urging everyone to vote on election day. Declare Yourself has really cast a wide net, and it's great to see celebrities like Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Shia LaBeouf, Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Snoop Dogg, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg, Scar Jo, and Justin Timberlake participate in their efforts.



Founded by television producer and philanthropist Norman Lear, Declare Yourself was launched in 2003 as the culmination of the Declaration of Independence Road Trip, a nationwide multimedia exhibit and tour of an original copy of the Declaration of Independence. Using media partnerships, celebrity spokespeople and the Internet technology, Declare Yourself's campaign registered over one million young people in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

This year, Jessica Alba and Hayden Panettiere’s ‘muzzle’ ads were a central part of the “Only You Can Silence Yourself” campaign aimed at registering every eligible 18-to-29 years old to vote in the 2008 presidential election. In addition to their video, I thought the photo campaign and billboards were effective and very well done. Here is my favorite:



As I said above, this has been a very interesting experience. So please, vote on November 4th. No matter what the outcome, it will be an historic election.