Hollywood Declares Themselves - Part 2....FIVE MORE FRIENDS!

Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Snoop Dogg, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg, Justin Timberlake, along with Sacha Baron Cohen as “Borat,” Zach Braff, Colin Farrell, Neil Patrick Harris, Scarlett Johansson, Shia LeBeouf, Tobey Maguire, Ryan Reynolds, and Jason Segal, are featured in a second of a series of public service announcements to encourage American youth to vote in partnership with Google, YouTube, Declare Yourself, and MySpace. Also featured in the PSA are everyday Americans speaking about important issues and reasons to vote. The non-partisan PSA’s, produced by DiCaprio’s Appian Way, were created to engage and inspire young people to vote and participate in the upcoming election.

Cast of ABC Family's GREEK to help register voters!

Declare Yourself and the cast of ABC Family's GREEK are joining forces to help register voters!


Cast members will be visiting Follett run bookstores across the US to register voters and promote season 2 of GREEK which premieres Tuesday, Aug. 26 at 9:00pm on ABC Family.


Below are the list of dates and schools the cast will be visiting. Want to get involved? You can volunteer with the cast and help them register voters by emailing declareyourself@gmail.com


GREEK / Declare Yourself dates:
Aug 23 - Sat - Cal State Northridge
Aug 25 - Mon - Notre Dame
Sept 2 - Tue - Sacramento State Uni
Sept 5 - Fri - University of Oklahoma
Sept 8 - Mon - FLorida State
Sept 9 - Tue - Uni of Florida
Sept 16 - Tue - University of Georgia, Athens

We have a limited amount of spots so email declareyourself@gmail.com ASAP!

Offshore Drilling: Obama vs. McCain

With gas prices beginning to affect more and more aspects of American life, a recent research poll suggestsedthat 69% of the US population support some form of offshore drilling. But are the 2008 Presidential nominees’ potential solutions sounding increasingly similar?

While John McCain supported the offshore drilling of previously untapped oil reserves early on, Barack Obama advocated for research into alternative forms of energy such as biodiesel fuels. With gas prices beginning to affect food and consumer prices and showing no signs of slowing down, however, Obama has changed his stance and recently advocated for limited & “responsible” offshore drilling. The McCain campaign has correctly accused Obama of altering his position on the energy crisis, but Obama still contends that offshore drilling cannot be the whole solution. While offshore drilling would eventually increase the domestic supply of oil, the Presumptive Democratic nominee states that we would not see the benefits of new refineries for “at least seven years.” McCain has been steadfast in his support of offshore drilling.

'The Great American Voter Trek' Ends After 2,200 Miles!

Laramie, Wyoming (August 1, 2008) - The Great American Voter Trek ended today in Laramie, Wyoming after 2,200 miles of cycling spanning 47 days. The goal of the trip, which began in Vermont on June 16th, was to raise voter awareness prior to the November 4th general election.

By all accounts, the project was considered "a huge success." The cyclists, comprised of students representing a variety of Vermont universities and colleges, met with thousands of people throughout the ten states they traversed. They spoke to many city's mayors & councilmen and participated in six voter registration drives, registering people aged 17 to 60!

So why was the focus of this trek on voter registration? The US Census Bureau states that, of 197 million eligible Americans citizens, only 142 million are registered. And the voice of today's youth is even less represented. Only 60% of 18 to 29 year-olds are registered to vote and more than half of those do not make it out to the polls!

And why Vermont to Wyoming? Vermont was the first state to allow non-property owners the right to vote. Wyoming was the first state to grant women's suffrage. It is easy to forget how hard many people have fought (and are still fighting today) for the ballot.

To learn more about 'The Great Voter Trek', go to www.votertrek.com.

Congratulations guys!

Some Declare Yourself Reading Material!

We here at Declare Yourself really want you to understand what a privilege it is to get out there and vote. It is easy to associate the struggle for universal suffrage with the past. Voting can appear boring or even trivial. But in the wake of the recent violence in Zimbabwe concerning a disputed democratic election, we can still see today (like, right now!) that people are fighting for the ballot.


In Declare Yourself: Speak. Connect. Act. Vote., some of America’s most famous and interesting celebrities tell you about their first voting experiences and discuss the importance of voting. Read some of the excerpts below, get inspired to vote, or even buy the book. Most importantly, remember to register to VOTE.


Amber Tamblyn


“In 2000 I was seventeen years old. I missed the presidential election by a few months and took it like a dodgeball to the stomach. To me, voting was the ultimate choice. It wasn’t so much my history teacher in high school or my relatives who made me interested in the Art of Voting. (Yeah, I said ART. Deal with it.) It was the sense that I was becoming a part of something that was bigger than I am—a rare opportunity for someone who has been acting since the age of nine and has learned how to live vicariously through herself. I was ready to go beyond all that. I wanted so badly to be a new tooth in the mouth of my country, helping to grind into the term democracy, by really becoming a part of the nutritional value of it: US. The people. The nine-to-fivers who take thirty-minute intermissions on an Election Day to be sincere. To mean what we say.”


Hayden Panettiere


“When I turned eighteen this past year, my first stop that morning was to the Declare Yourself office in Los Angeles to register to vote. It only took a couple of minutes to fill out the form on my laptop. But the feeling of going through a special rite of passage stayed with me all day—I could actually vote and exercise my right to pick who’s running the country.”


“Many of my friends and peers think of getting their driver’s license or taking their first drink as their big rites of passage. People need to know, though, just how powerful and important it is to vote for the first time. It’s not just your vote that matters, but your vote when it is counted along with all the other votes cast by young people around the country.”


“You may not know it, but we are the fastest growing group of voters. It’s a big group, getting bigger every day. Did you know that four million Americans turn eighteen every year? The people in Washington will have no choice but to listen to us—but only if we speak up; only if we exercise our voting rights and don’t silence ourselves.”

Where the Heck is McCain?

It’s easy to see why the media attention has shifted over to the democratic race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This is hands down the most heated primary race in recent history for any party! But it’s only the primary. After the primary race is decided, the winner still has another tough fight ahead of him/her versus John McCain!

McCain is already the presumptive Republican nominee and has the Republican National Committee’s support. But don’t think that he’s sitting around doing nothing while the Democratic candidates duke it out!

Until his campaign officially re-launches in April, McCain will be keeping himself busy. According to the New York Times, McCain will be doing intense fundraising for his campaign, attending anywhere from 20 to 30 events a month. This will be a big push for his campaign because his fundraising throughout the primaries lagged behind both Clinton’s and Obama’s.

He will also take this time to travel overseas to Europe and the Middle East to analyze the US’s international affairs and deliver a foreign policy speech upon returning. McCain said he views the campaign lull as a perfect opportunity to “get our own house in order.”

McCain has an obvious opportunity to jump start his presidential campaign as the Republican nominee, but the main focus of most media is the never-ending democratic primary. Do you think it’s an advantage to McCain that he gets a head start as a party nominee? Do you think it is hurting him to be cast in the democratic shadow?

Hayden Panettiere on Larry King Live!

DY spokesperson and all around wonderful human being, Hayden Panettiere, was on Larry King Live Monday, March 3rd to talk about the importance of the youth vote in America. Watch a clip from the show below or watch the whole episode now on CNN: