An older Democrat asked me how to get younger votes who are excited about Barack Obama to vote a straight Democratic ticket.

Thanks to past Democratic legislatures, the ballot makes this hard. You have to vote for Obama, then go to a separate place to vote a straight ticket. That was a good idea when John Kerry and Michael Dukakis were the candidates. This year, maybe not.

I’m too old to answer the question. So I asked a 19-year-old committed Democrat. His answer:

Plain and simple, my generation loves Obama. He gets us, he trusts us, treats us as equals, and shares a lot of our values.

When it comes to a candidate, and how we expect to be treated, we just want a little respect. It’s a fact that, and I mean no offense, the people at my age, in my generation, are smarter, more rounded, and more involved than in any other generation before. We want to be treated like that. Don’t assume I’m not going to vote, don’t assume I can’t point out Iraq on a map, don’t assume I spend my day on the couch watching MTV and playing Xbox. Don’t assume we don’t know anything, because in this day and age, we do. If I’m wrong about something, I’m wrong because I’m wrong, not because I’m under 30. If a candidate respects us, and treats us like we are valuable, and like we could actually help, we are going to swarm towards them. That’s why we like Obama, and it doesn’t matter how tied to him other Dems are, if we see this respect in them, we will go towards them.

But, tying themselves to the Obama movement won’t hurt.

The first and most obvious thing is just for every down-ballot Dem to tie themselves not just to Obama himself, but also to change and bringing about a new way of doing things. But everyone knows this already.

The second thing is for Obama to make more mention of how he represents a party, and make the movement based around that. He is always talking about how HE is bringing change and hope, and how HE will make Washington better. What he needs to do is talk about how HE is part of the larger movement, not the single face of it. The leader of this movement needs to be the Democratic Party, not just Obama. He needs to talk about how if you really want to change things, it doesn’t stop with him. What’s going to bring real change is the election of Democrats in every office and at every level.

It comes in two parts. First, and most importantly, convincing people that Democrats will bring change. The second, and by far easiest, is convincing people that the Republicans are to blame for how bad things are.

Obama should take a big part in this, but it’s his surrogates that really need to take the lead in convincing people that more Democrats = more, better change, and that all Republicans = the same corrupt, wrong way that is ruining America. When they go on those talk shows and when they give speeches, it needs to not just be about Obama. It needs to be about how America needs a movement that brings sweeping change, and that that movement means electing Democratic governors, senators, representatives, mayors, state auditors, soil conservancy commissioners, everything. It just needs to really be hammered home that real change needs all Democrats, not just one man, to really happen.

This Ted Stevens thing is the perfect example of how to combine these two things into one easy message. The Democratic message about this shouldn’t attack Ted, because we all know he’s a fool and this event didn’t change anyone’s thinking about him. The message should be, in short, “If you elect more Republicans, this is what you get.” It’s exactly what Kay Hagan needs to be doing, but isn’t. Democrats already don’t like Liddy Dole, but (for some reason) everyone else does. It’s going to be hard, if not impossible, to win if the race is Hagan v. Dole. The race needs to be Another Agent of Change v. More of the Same. Point out that Dole is a Republican Senator, and here are the kinds of things Republicans do. Just look at Stevens, Craig, DeLay, Foley, and on and on. Then point out that Hagan is a Democrat, doesn’t stand for the Republican way of doing things, and will be an invaluable help in Obama’s remaking of Washington. Every candidate needs to do that, even incumbents. They can tweak the message a bit to be “I have the experience and clout needed to help Obama bring change, and to keep the Republican corruption away from government and the American people.”

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