Thanksgiving Day may be over, but I still want to give thanks. Democracy needed your help, and you answered the call. Your commitment to progress is inspiring and necessary, and we will certainly need to keep up the hard work in the months and years to come to make sure America lives up to its promise. If what I saw on Election Day is any indication, we are well on our way to filling that promise.

This evening Nobel Prize Winner and former Vice President Al Gore gave a live webcast organized by Power Vote. Power Vote is a nation-wide non-partisan campaign the Energy Action Coalition has put together to try to motivate a million young voters who will pledge to vote for a clean and just energy solution and to hold political figures accountable for moving to reach that goal.

How does a young person make it in today’s economy? How does someone just getting out of college with an education financed by students loans get a job that leaves them enough money to pay their loans, eat and drive to work.  The economic slowdown is affecting young people. Finding a job has become harder. And getting that first job is more important as costs of basic goods and services are rising. Food is more expensive and the price of gas has gone up dramatically. Despite the decrease in home values due to the mortgage market crisis housing is still very expensive.

This year going back to school is about far more than returning to campus – it’s about changing history. For many a trip to the ballot box will be right around the corner, and some will cast their first ever vote for president. We want to be sure that the youth voice is heard. But it won’t be unless young people are prepared for the challenges they may face at the polls.

Campaigns are spinning, pundits are pontificating, the candidates are on to the next state and Indiana and North Carolina are yesterdays headline. So who won? We did, the young voters. Voters under 30 made up 17% of the electorate in Indiana, while voters over 65 made up 15%. While African American voters get most of the credit for pushing Obama's numbers so high in North Carolina, in Indiana it was the youth that kept the numbers so tight.

What does this mean? It means that young people now have one of the biggest bargaining chips to dictate the conversations of the coming election. But there are a few things that we need to do to keep ourselves in the conversation.