YOUNG POLITICAL ACTIVIST: AIKEN, S.C.

Randy Rashad Gaines, 23 from Aiken, Sc

Randy Rashad Gaines is president of the Young Democrats of South Carolina, the youth-led arm of the state's Democratic Party. He explains his role as "an agent for change and an advocate for the underdog."

Randy says he's been preparing for political leadership since childhood. "I'm a southern church boy. I was raised to treat people right and to have a respect for authority, and that has been my guiding motivation. It sort of prepared me for this, being pushed out in front of people at church, being the leader amongst the kids at my church because of being the most vocal," he said.

Randy doesn't see his role merely as drumming up youth to help with the upcoming election. Instead, he is working to create lifelong activists in the political process.

"My goal isn't to be eye to eye with the state party chair as well as some other leaders in the state's Democratic Party. They just want young people to get out and canvass and do phone banking and to volunteer and all that bull. There's nothing wrong with that. You actually need to get out there and get those votes, so that we can win the presidency of the United States.

"However, when you build a campaign off of excitement, after the excitement is gone, people leave. After that you have to rebuild the cycle four years later. There's going to come a time when people are going to stay involved in the political process. The question is, who is the person to become the catalyst for this to come this time?"

What is the best response to your work?

My greatest reward and my greatest challenge are people joining and or taking part in the political process consistently and constantly. So that's what I'm trying to build right now. People who read literature and articles every day about news and politics; those are the people that you want involved.

What advice would you give to kids who want to get politically involved?

You must be very knowledgeable. You have to read things you don't want to read. I get up every morning and I read The New York Times. I get business alerts from Google, New York, L.A., Atlanta and Chicago, along with political and government alerts. You just have to be so knowledgeable of what's going on around you.

The next step of advice I would give is to have respectful manners. You can't walk into a meeting talking to the future president of the United States saying, "Ah yo! What.s up, Barack?"

According to Rock the Vote, this is the first year that the leading Democratic candidates all have a youth director and youth voter outreach programs. What do you think has changed to allow young people to feel a part of the process?

This has been the most exciting election that we are going to ever have in America. The only way the presidential election will be more exciting in the future is if an athlete or entertainer runs for office. I'm not saying that we need that by any means. I feel that in today's society, you can truly be what you want to be, and that's an inspiration to many kids out there.

YP: If you could talk with the candidates about any issue, what would it be?

Higher education. Higher education is the system and filter of our society. It sifts out the weak and the ignorant and those who aren't capable. If you have a weak higher education system, you're going to have a weak society.