CURRENT AGE: 19
YOUNG POLITICAL ACTIVIST: PORTLAND, ME
It took a while, but the Blunt Youth Radio Project has helped Gavin Bauer find his voice.
Gavin joined the project (www.bluntradio.org) his freshman year but didn’t really get involved until this year. Started in 1994, the project produces a weekly call-in talk show that airs Monday nights from 7:30 to 8:30 in the greater Portland area. The subjects range widely, from teen motherhood, to voting, to suggestive language.
Besides reporting and engineering for shows, Gavin has explored a variety of topics for the program, including homelessness and the Iraq War. He also is involved in politics on a personal level. During the 2004 elections, he volunteered with the Kerry campaign and has helped the Obama campaign during the Maine primary.
What would you consider your biggest success on the radio?
The first time I had a feature on the radio and I could hear my own voice and my family heard it, that was really exciting.
What are some of the problems facing youth in your area?I know several high school dropouts, and they just really aren’t given a lot of options. The minimum wage is really low; that’s a huge problem for a lot of people, especially when teens drop out of high school and they start entering adulthood and they have no opportunities to ever make more than minimum wage. Because as an adult, when you’re paying taxes and you’re trying to get an apartment or whatever, you really can’t afford to live on minimum wage.
If you could talk to any candidate about any issue, what would you talk aboutI would definitely choose to talk to Obama because I think not only is he the candidate who I can connect most with, but he’s the candidate who I hope wins the presidency.It would definitely be hard to choose one issue. I have some pretty strong views on a lot of them — the environment, just the whole way our economy is working and our welfare system, and just things the government could be doing better. I think that all handguns should be illegal, as well as all machine guns and automatic guns.
According to Rock the Vote, this is the first year that leading Democratic candidates all have a youth director and a youth voter outreach program. What other things do you think that politicians or the parties can do to incorporate youth more?
I think they’re doing a good job of the whole outreach aspect. It’s hard to incorporate youth without kind of blatantly advertising to them. It’s good that the videos get up on YouTube so kids who don’t watch the news or watch the debates still get an idea of what their views are.
Also recently, I don’t know if you have heard about this, but I heard from one of my friends that there’s a competition for students who can make a 30-second film, a pro-Obama ad. And there is some sort of big scholarship or something for the winner.