We were up most of the night crunching numbers on young voters in Super Tuesday. They turned out strongly, as predicted, and we’re putting all the latest information on our homepage as we produce it. We’ve been getting lots and lots of press attention throughout the primary season, which is gratifying and a useful opportunity to get people thinking about young Americans as active citizens. The most fun media hit is my colleague Karlo Barrios Marcelo talking about young voters in a Manhattan bar–as seen on CBS news.

I wrote my first post on January 8, 2003 and have posted almost every weekday since then–the biggest gap being last month. This is post number 1,261. When I started, most of my friends didn’t know what a blog was, and I remember a huge room of people at a national conference scratching their heads when someone (not I) used the word. Now everyone seems to have a blog, and even I realize that hip people have shifted to other formats.

I began with something like an online diary, recording what I was up to. Gradually, I settled into a habit of writing mini-essays and deliberately trying to rotate my posts among political commentary, news about civic renewal, applications of moral/political philosophy to current issues, and cultural criticism. I have often used this space as a notebook. Much of my most recent book, The Future of Democracy, appeared here, one paragraph at a time. I allow myself to be self-referential about once a year, near the blog’s birthday, when I write about my own blogging.

I keep up with other explicitly civic blogs and I’m delighted to have their company. For the most part, the political blogs I read are now the ones that have been formally incorporated into magazines such as The Atlantic and The American Prospect. I don’t know whether this short list reflects laziness on my part or an inevitable winnowing-out process that has made the blogosphere more professional.

(Tampa) These are helpful statistics. They put into numbers what we can feel experientially: an enormous increase in the proportion of young Americans who are paying attention to the election this year. (Also, a very steep tilt toward the Democratic candidates.) The full story is here.

If this page is going to remain a blog, I need to return sooner or later to daily posting. Right now, I’m heading to Tampa, Florida, where the Hillsborough County Schools are launching a major initiative to teach students about democracy and citizenship. They won a highly competitive $2 million federal grant for that purpose. I’m going to participate in a televised discussion at 10:30 tomorrow morning with the Mayor, Pam Iorio, who is planning to create a youth commission. Then I’m having lunch at the University of South Florida with an interdisciplinary group of professors who are active in community service and research. At 5 pm, I’m giving a keynote speech at Freedom High School to help kick off the county’s program.

(Syracuse) I haven’t wanted to post here because I have been helping to care for my Dad at the very end of his good life. I have an appreciation of him written and ready to post when his struggle finally does end.