Jerome Armstrong, an Internet strategist for the Dean campaign and Moulitsas' partner in a political consulting firm, first encountered Yellin on MYDD, his now-mothballed blog
Message 19738582
To: LindyBill who wrote (26590) 1/27/2004 2:47:00 PM
From: LindyBill of 168258
On the Internet, nobody knows you are fifteen. I just posted from "Daily Kos" and said it was the best Dem.
Teen Blogger Turns Heads Online By Ryan Singel
Story location: wired.com
02:00 AM Jan. 27, 2004 PT
Stephen Yellin posts a minutiae-filled analysis of Senate, House and gubernatorial races across the country almost weekly on Daily Kos, the most-trafficked liberal political blog on the Net. Other posters laud his thoroughness and debate his conclusions.
He has landed a spot as a political operative with a major Democratic presidential nominee. He's walked precincts, volunteered for campaigns and run for office.
He is also 15 years old -- too young to drive to his local polling station, let alone cast a vote there.
Yellin is just a sophomore in high school, but in the blogosphere he is already a veteran.
Yellin, who goes by the handle MrLiberal and calls himself a Hubert Humphrey-style Democrat, has been hanging out with political junkies online since he was 13.
Yellin's posts are not of the "me too" or "your candidate flip-flops" variety. Instead, they read like memos written by a Democratic National Committee senior staffer.
A slice from a typical post: "Arizona-Democrats have cleared the field in AZ-1 for Paul Babbitt, the brother of former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt.... The Republican incumbent, Rick Renzi, won unimpressively with 49 percent in 2002 against a scandal-plagued and little-known opponent, who dropped out a few days ago to back Babbitt. This seat is a marginal one (I think Gore carried it, but don't quote me on that), but Babbitt's name recognition and Renzi's weak hold on the district give Babbitt a great shot at winning the seat."
Yellin's post continues, in similar (if not more) detail, to analyze races in Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana.
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a political consultant who runs Daily Kos, says that though his website is popular enough that he can be very picky about who guest-blogs on his site, he chose Yellin despite his young age, not because of it.
"I would be hard pressed to cite any other individual more attuned and informed on the nation's House and Senate races than Stephen," said Moulitsas in an e-mail. "The kid researches and follows hundreds of races. It borders on the obsessive. And given he's a teenager, this is a good thing to be obsessed about considering the alternatives."
Daily Kos readers may argue with Yellin's prognostications, but none question his ability.
One Daily Kos reader called Yellin the "Trippi of the future," referring to Howard Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, who is credited by many for revolutionizing the use of the Internet for political campaigns.
Another poster who goes by the name Yellow Dog Dem wrote, "The kid is a budding superstar.... If you hadn't informed us otherwise, I would have thought that Yellin was a seasoned political operative."
Yellin takes the praise in stride and responds to questions about his life with a sense of confidence rivaled only by his knowledge of politics.
"I always say that while I can't vote, I can damn sure make a difference," he said. "It doesn't feel odd, it shouldn't feel odd, because all Americans should be doing this. We as a country need to be more involved, especially our youth."
Yellin started posting to political boards, such as the bipartisan board Our Campaigns and MYDD, in 2001.
Jerome Armstrong, an Internet strategist for the Dean campaign and Moulitsas' partner in a political consulting firm, first encountered Yellin on MYDD, his now-mothballed blog.
Yellin was a frequent poster and in the MYDD political-junkie prediction contest for the 2002 congressional and gubernatorial elections, Yellin out-prognosticated most of the 112 other participants, including Moulitsas, Armstrong and Billmon, a MYDD poster who now runs a top-tier blog called Whiskey Bar.
Armstrong is clearly impressed by Yellin and fondly recalls the teenager's first electoral effort.
"When Stephen ran for student council, he told me he had divided the school into interest groups, the jocks, the popular kids, etc., and tried to figure out where his support was and how to appeal to them," said Armstrong. "He was applying political strategy to a high school race."
Despite his political smarts, Yellin did not win a seat.
"I had a nice strategy," said Yellin, "but I didn't realize that the most popular people win, not the most competent."
The loss has not soured him on politics, however. He soon will be working as a youth coordinator for Stephen Brozak, a New Jersey Democrat running for Congress.
Yellin lives with his parents and his older brother, David, in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, a suburban town that Yellin describes as "Republicanville." His father, Bruce Yellin, a computer engineer and salesman, proudly forwards Stephen's posts to friends and family.
But Stephen Yellin says he loves politics mainly because of the stories that his mother, Alice Avrutin-Yellin, who works as a substitute teacher, told him about her father: Harry Avrutin founded the Office Employees International Union in 1945 and was secretary of the AFL-CIO's New York City Central Labor Council for 20 years.
Stephen Yellin even set up his bar mitzvah as a political convention with all 50 delegations, but he admits the nomination was rigged in his favor.
Though he's already burned his way through Robert Caro's Master of the Senate, a 1,200-page biography of Lyndon Johnson, and Theodore White's insider takes on presidential campaigns in the '60s and '70s, Yellin says his life is not just about politics.
He also likes hanging out with friends and is a budding actor with a predilection for Shakespeare.
Still, Yellin spends a lot of time on the Internet, reading local papers and political news sites such as PoliticsUS, so he can prepare his articles, which he says only take him 40 minutes to write and edit.
"I think the Internet is going to help lessen the influence of the special interests and lobbyists," said Yellin. "I think that as more people turn to the Internet, you're going to see more informed and simply more voters. And those informed voters are going to demand better leaders and better government."
Yellin already has a strategy for his political future after college (Georgetown, George Washington or Columbia, he hopes).
"One -- get elected as a town councilman. Two -- get elected as state senator by 2021. Three, run for governor and win by 2029. Four, run for president in 2032 or 2036," he said.
But even if Yellin does not make it to the White House, Moulitsas predicts the teenager will do much better in the adult world of politics than he did in his race for student council.
"The kid has a serious future in politics. The only thing he lacks is experience," said Moulitsas. "While he'll have to finish high school and college to score those ever-important paper credentials, his true education will come from observing several election cycles up close.
"And after he's done with school, I'm sure my firm won't be the only one bidding for his talents." |
