Sam Young is a 30-year-old Web developer from Glover, Vt., a town of 900 people in the Northeast Kingdom. He's also running as an Independent for governor of Vermont. Young does not represent the typical politician, but his ideas may represent the future of politics.
Ideas for a better Vermont
The first point of Young's platform is to prepare Vermont for a 21st century economy. He hopes to install high-speed Internet throughout the state and create distribution centers that will help Vermont's artisans and shops do business online.
“To be able to order something online and [have it] show up at your door is an important part of the modern world, and we're trying to catch up to Third World countries,” Young says.
“There's plenty of economic opportunity out there, we just have to connect to it.”
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Young's campaign stickers and signs promote both the candidate's name and his driving campaign theme with a simple pun.
(Photo by Tyler Machado) |
Vermont is experiencing a “brain drain” of young, educated people leaving the state to look for work elsewhere, Young says.
“It would offer an opportunity for all kinds of people to move back to Vermont, or stay in Vermont, with high-paying jobs,” he says.
Young also hopes to return more control to local government. This plan includes repealing Act 60, a state law that governs the way in which each school district in the state is funded through property taxes.
“All towns, instead of raising their own money for schools and having control over that money, the state controls that dispersal,” Young says.
Young wants state government to “turn as much control over to local communities as possible because that's where the solutions come from,” he says.
“You start taking control away from communities, you're diminishing the democracy that we had,” he says.
Though Vermont is known for its town meetings, participation is down because “there are no real decisions to be made there anymore,” Young says.
Green power for the Green Mountain State
Young also hopes to introduce new energy ideas to the state.
“The reason I'm talking about energy is because we're talking about the survival of our rural communities,” Young says.
“Vermont has the ability to be energy independent,” he says. “So much of our money is flowing out of the state towards oil companies. We need to focus on keeping that money in the state.”
This would include implementing grassfuel, which requires compressing grasses into pellets for use in heating energy. An acre of land harvested for grassfuel can produce the equivalent of 400 gallons of oil, and there are 100,000 acres of underused land in Vermont, Young says.
Young also hopes to pursue butanol, a biofuel, as a fuel for gasoline engines.
Using Facebook as a campaign tool
Young has dedicated a part of his platform towards increasing youth involvement in politics.
“The reason I believe that young people will pretty soon have the ability to control politics is because we're the ones who know how to use technology,” Young says.
To this end, Young has made Facebook a major part of his campaign.
“Facebook is this medium that's changing the world,” he says. “I just wanted to know what its potential was in terms of how well you can network people and basically get the youth involved in politics in Vermont.”
“Half of everybody under 35 uses it,” he adds. “If all of those people were engaged in discussion about what they wanted to happen politically, it could be a really powerful tool for the younger generation to affect politics.”
Young cites the peer-to-peer aspect of social networking platforms like Facebook as the reason they're so powerful.
“When something is recommended to us from a friend, it has a lot more value than if we watched it on TV,” he says.
Young has 1,531 friends on Facebook. By comparison, Democrat Gaye Symington has 285 supporters on Facebook, and Independent Anthony Pollina has 205. Incumbent Republican Jim Douglas does not have a Facebook profile.
Young also created the Web site VermontVotes.net, which allows users to post their ideas on what issues are important to them. Fellow users can comment on ideas and vote for the ideas in a system similar to the social content Web site Digg.com.
Senior history and political science major Michael Cyr supports Young for his broadband plans, though his feelings are mixed on Young's use of Facebook.
“I think that makes it sort of a novelty campaign, which is why he won't get that many votes,” Cyr says.
“It's definitely a good way to cultivate a base,” he adds. “In the future it can prove worthwhile...Obama's campaign is certainly an indication of that.”
Young agrees, saying that Obama's utilization of Facebook to get young people to vote is what won him the Democratic candidacy for president.
Burlington resident Lee Parsons is one of Young's Facebook friends.
“I think [Facebook is] a tool that's really come into its own...to connect with people with similar values,” Parsons says. “Sam's really got his finger on the right pulse, because everyone uses it.”
“I'm grateful that Sam is someone who really wants to widen the field of local politics,” Parsons adds. “We need to feel part of the democratic process.”
Open source politics
Young has run his campaign under a concept he calls open democracy, which integrates the concepts behind the open source movement in computer software into politics.
| “If [Facebook users] were engaged in discussion about what they wanted to happen politically, it could be a really powerful tool for the younger generation to affect politics.”
-Sam Young, Independent candidate for governor |
The open source movement emphasizes collaboration by programmers. Young believes more collaboration is needed in government, he says.
“We have huge energy and economic things to deal with right now. That's what [legislators] need to work on, not on random social issues,” Young says.
“Rather than just saying, 'My way or the highway, we're gonna just fight this out and create a lot of rhetoric and spin,' why not just have people work together?” Young says. “Why not have the energy leaders of the state get together and collaborate on what the best policy together?”
Regardless of the election's outcome, Young says he will continue to fight for his ideas.
“For me it goes beyond this election,” Young says. “We're gonna see how many people we can get involved.” |
