18 in '08 is both a 35-minute film and a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that encourages young people to vote - in part, by showing the effect they can have on policy, from a Darfur rally to a college-loan rate cut. It features interviews conducted mostly by Burstein with politicians and activists such as Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Gen. Wesley Clark, as well as voters and nonvoters. (The $15 DVD is available at www.18in08.com.)
Burstein - who hopes to be a politician someday himself, and readily quotes trends and statistics - is balancing a full course load with making plans to take the film on a 50-state tour in the summer and on a university tour in the fall.
"This film lends credibility to the once-insane notion that young people actually care about politics," said David C. King, lecturer in public policy at Harvard University, who was interviewed by Burstein and is on his advisory board. "The conventional wisdom has always been that young people just don't care, but now more than ever, that isn't true."
There are already signs that 2008 is a big year for young voters. Of the eight states that were part of Super Tuesday in 2000 and 2008, seven saw sharp increases in the number of voters under 30 (they tripled in Missouri and Georgia, and increased fivefold in Tennessee), according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement based at the University of Maryland.
Scott Merrick, 22, a two-term New Hampshire state representative interviewed in 18 in '08, was elected to his first term when he was 19. Although he was little more than a ballot-filler then, Merrick, now a senior majoring in political science at Tufts University, campaigned heavily for young voters and won by fewer than 150 votes.
