P. DIDDY: ‘VOTE OR DIE!’ If a dramatic message is what’s needed to get young people to the polls, you can’t do much better than the one hip hop performer Sean “P. Diddy” Combs unleashed on hundreds of teens and 20-somethings yesterday.

“Vote or die!” P. Diddy told an event organized by the youth caucus of the Democratic Party. “If I’m scaring you, then good. It’s that serious,” he said.

Some young women in the audience looked ready to swoon as the rap heavyweight took to the stage. Those who maintained their composure scrambled for “Vote or Die” T-shirts handed out by a voter registration group. In 2000, 42% of people between 18 and 24 turned out to vote, while about 70% of older citizens cast ballots. P. Diddy insisted that’s all about to change.

“Trust me, neither party has even factored your vote into their equations. They don’t think you’re going to get up off your butts and vote, but we got a trick for them this year. We’re going to come out in numbers that have never been seen before,” P. Diddy said.

P. Diddy swore off any Bush-bashing yesterday, but he did indulge in a little rabble-rousing.

“It’s not about talk. It’s about action. It’s about revolution,” the entertainer declared.

A 21-year-old junior at nearby Northeastern University, Liofina Zapata, said she loved P. Diddy’s appearance but wasn’t listening too closely to what he said. “I was too busy taking pictures!” she gushed. “He hyped people up, that’s for sure.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SPRINGER TAKES A SWING AT POLITICIANS A crowd of young Democrats at the convention welcomed talk show host Jerry Springer with the chant of “Jer-ry, Jer-ry, Jer-ry,” one of the trademarks of his rowdy television program.

“Politicians are running your life,” Mr. Springer said. “They decide who lives who dies….The people who are fighting and dying in Iraq are your age.”

Mr. Springer, who is a convention delegate from Ohio and a former mayor of Cincinnati, said getting Mr Kerry into office is critical.

“Imagine if people who are running our government today have another four years and they don’t have to worry about being re-elected? Isn’t that a scary notion? Who will we go to war against then?”

Mr. Springer is considering a bid for governor of Ohio in 2006. He said one of the biggest challenges facing Democrats is attracting people who have an aversion to politics.

“It’s the people who are complaining that their television show just got pre-empted because of coverage of the convention, those are the people we have to reach,” he said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FRANKEN’S ADVICE FOR BUSH

Humorist Al Franken suggested President Bush could have avoided the ire of some Muslims over his descriptions of the war against terror as a “crusade” and the Afghanistan war operation “infinite justice” if his political adviser, Karl Rove, had only “gone into the streets of Washington, flagged down a Pakistani cab driver, brought him into the White House, and just run this stuff by him.”

Later, after the speaker of the State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, introduced New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as, among other things, one of New York magazine’s 50 sexiest New Yorkers, Mr. Franken observed: “Imagine if he had a full head of hair.”