Monthly Archives: January 2012

‘In my personal experience, it isn’t very difficult to [register],’ Kayla Westbrook, chairwoman of the FSU College Republicans, says.
By Gil Kaufman

Mitt Romney campaigns in Jacksonville, Fl


Photo: AFP/Getty Images

JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Conventional political wisdom has it that Democrats are great at registering new voters and Republicans are just as good at getting their already-registered base to come out and vote.

That adage will be put to the test in Florida this year thanks to some new voter registration laws that some argue have made it more difficult to add new voters to the rolls. In the last presidential election, more than 61 percent (763,000) of the 1.2 million 18-to-29-year-old voters who cast ballots went for President Obama over John McCain (37 percent, 462,700), according to figures provided by the civic education and research organization CIRCLE.

Kayla Westbrook, chairwoman of the FSU College Republicans, hopes to change that before Tuesday’s (January 31) pivotal Republican primary. “We’ve talked about the new voting laws because we have a lot of freshmen coming in and they want to be registered in Tallahassee so they can be a part of local Republican groups,” Westbrook said.

Westbrook is confident that the changes in voter registration laws will not have an impact on her efforts. “In my personal experience, it isn’t very difficult to [register],” she said. “My roommate was a Democrat until a few weeks ago and she wanted to vote in the Republican primary for Ron Paul. So on January 3 I made sure to get her down there to register and it just wasn’t that difficult.”

The controversial rules in the state governing how third-party civic organizations can register new voters have spawned a number of lawsuits over claims from groups such as Rock the Vote that their mandates are “confusing” and that they breach the 1993 Voter Registration Act, a federal law designed to encourage community-based voter-registration activity.

They argue that the laws impact groups such as theirs by scaring off potential volunteers with threats of unspecified civil legal action and fines of $50 to $1,000 if the registration forms are not turned in within 48 hours. Rock the Vote and the League of Women Voters are among several Florida groups that have filed suit to overturn the law, claiming that it seeks to disenfranchise young and minority voters, among other voting blocs.

But Westbrook hopes the rules will, as intended, root out voter fraud in a state that has proved pivotal in the past three presidential election cycles.

“I think that this is doing a good job to try and help with the voter fraud, but you can’t get rid of all of it,” she said. “I think the people that are doing the voter registration drives don’t need to fear being penalized because they have 48 hours to do it. We will have voter registration drives and whoever it is who is registered with the state will just turn them in the next day.”

With CIRCLE reporting that the Florida youth population has grown by more than 270,000 since the 2008 election, that means there are lots of new potential voters out there for both parties to tap into.

“I certainly hope we can get more registered Republicans this year and close that gap,” Westbrook said of her party’s typical lag in signing up new voters compared to Democrats. “We’re definitely taking the right steps to do that.”

MTV is on the scene in Florida! Check back here around the clock for up-to-the-minute coverage on the primary caucuses and stick with PowerOf12.org throughout the 2012 presidential election season.

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Singer has not performed since undergoing vocal cord surgery in November.
By Christina Garibaldi

Adele


Photo: Jon Furniss/ WireImage

After months of vocal rest, Adele is returning to the stage for her first live performance, and she’s doing it at the Grammys. The six-time Grammy nominee will grace the stage live on February 12 for the first time since undergoing surgery to stop bleeding from a polyp on her vocal cords in November.

Adele broke the good news to her fans on Tuesday (January 31) via Twitter. “Ima be, Ima be singing at the Grammys.

It’s been so long I started to forget I was a singer!” Adele tweeted.
“I can’t wait, speak soon xx.”

This will be the second time that Adele has graced the Grammy stage.
She performed her hit song “Chasing Pavements” in 2009 at the annual awards show. That same night, Adele took home two awards, for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Pavements.”

This year, Adele has plenty of company from other A-list nominees set to sing at the show. Rihanna, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, Bruno Mars, Kelly Clarkson, Jason Aldean and Nicki Minaj will all perform live at the 54th Annual Grammys, which will be hosted by LL Cool J, the first time in seven years that the show has featured a host.

Earlier this month, Adele expressed her excitement about the awards, tweeting, “Looking forward to @theGRAMMYs on Feb 12! #WeAreMusic.”

Adele is up for six awards this year, including Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Album of the Year for her record-breaking 21. Just last week, the “Rolling in the Deep” singer’s second album marked its 17th non-consecutive week at #1 on the Billboard albums chart.

The singer will follow her performance at the Grammys by taking the stage on February 21 at the Brit Awards, where she has three nominations. Earlier this month Adele took to her Twitter about the nominations. “F—ing happy, thank you for the nods xx,” she tweeted.

Are you excited to see Adele perform at the Grammy Awards? Let us know in the comments.

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‘Turn Up the Music’ producers the Underdogs say Breezy is ‘the ultimate artist’ on upcoming Fortune album.
By Rob Markman

Chris Brown


Photo: Mindy Small/ FilmMagic

The Underdogs are no strangers to hitmaking. For the production/songwriting duo of Harvey Mason Jr. and Damon Thomas — who have crafted songs for Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige — their latest, Chris Brown‘s “Turn Up the Music,” could be their biggest hit yet.

It isn’t their first song with Breezy — the duo worked on his 2007 ballad “Take You Down” and his Jordin Sparks duet “No Air” — but on “Turn Up the Music,” the first single from his fifth solo album, Fortune, they take things to new sonic heights.

“He’s so well-rounded, so versatile, he can really cover anything. He kills the uptempos, he can do the urban uptempo records, he could do the ballads, he could do the pop songs. You can really come to him with any record that you think is that hot,” Mason told MTV News. “He is, for me right now and for many people, the ultimate artist. He’s kinda this generation’s Michael Jackson, if you will.”

On “Turn Up the Music,” which will be on sale digitally February 14 on iTunes, the Underdogs laced Breezy with a super-charged dance groove in a similar vein to last year’s hit “Yeah 3x.” For Mason and Thomas, the inspiration for this record came from Brown’s moves on the dance floor. “The inspiration was really him as an artist, visualizing how he dances and how he performs, and giving him something to match that energy,” Mason said.

This is the first taste we get from Breezy’s upcoming Fortune, a companion album to 2011′s F.A.M.E., and based on what they’ve already heard, the Underdogs expect some big things for the new album. “The Fortune record is F.A.M.E to the next level,” Mason described. “Similar material, but he’s really being innovative with some of the music that you haven’t heard before, taking pieces of other genres and integrating them into pop and R&B, which I think is really cool. Vocally, he sounds amazing; he’s really, really coming into his own as a singer.”

Thomas added: “The only way I can describe Chris and what he’s doin’ with this record that he’s making is that he’s this generation’s Michael [Jackson].”

Share your review of “Turn Up the Music” in the comments below!

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Actress talks dishes about rumors during ‘MTV First: This Means War,’ airing tonight at 7:56 p.m. on MTV and MTV.com!
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Justin Bieber


Photo: Scott Legato/ FilmMagic

A few weeks back, a rumor hit the Internet that Justin Bieber wanted to remake “Fear,” his pal Mark Wahlberg‘s classic thriller. Being that Wahlberg and Bieber already have a project in the works, it wouldn’t be too off base for the teen star to try his hand at the creepy film that follows a young man (Walhberg) who becomes obsessed with his teen girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon) and goes on a dangerous rampage when the romance turns sour.

Witherspoon will sit down with MTV News on Tuesday (January 31) for an exclusive interview and premiere of a previously unseen clip from her upcoming film, “This Means War.” The special, “MTV First: This Means War,” will air at 7:56 p.m. ET on MTV and MTV.com. And, during that chat, she has an interesting reaction to the news that her film may get a new-millennium remake.

“Oh, really? Fine, great. That’d be cool. Would he be playing me, or is he playing Mark Wahlberg?” she wondered. “Is it like a girl who harasses the family, like a stalker who can’t leave him alone? That would be good, right? I mean girls get crazy about him. Yeah, he’s very talented.”

Much like MTV First: Reese Witherspoon” hits MTV on Tuesday at 7:56 p.m. ET, check out Reese’s first-ever, totally adorable MTV interview, when she opened up in 1991 at the age of 14 about what drew her to Hollywood. And make sure to stick with Reese’s chat when it moves to MTV.com after an exclusive clip premieres Tuesday on MTV!

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‘Woman in Black’ star opens up to MTV News about his ‘really weird’ dreams — and his constant anxiety too.
By Kevin P. Sullivan, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Daniel Radcliffe

After finally facing off against Voldemort and then going head to head with the Woman in Black, Daniel Radcliffe shouldn’t have much to worry about. But at the age of 22, he has already become one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, and with that amount of recognition comes some worries.

When the actor spoke with MTV News’ Josh Horowitz, he opened up about his anxiety. Radcliffe’s energy comes across clearly during interviews, speaking quickly throughout and touching on many topics in a short amount of time, something the actor’s aware of. “Anxiety, yeah, a lot just because you’ve met me and you know what I’m like,” Radcliffe told Horowitz. “I’m a pretty anxious, high-energy person. I think that goes along with it.”

It should come as no surprise that Radcliffe has more than a busy schedule, which factors into his anxiety. “I’ll always worry about something, and if I don’t have something to worry about, I’ll worry about that,” he said.

Radcliffe also talked for a while about this dreams. He said he doesn’t dream often, but that when he does, they’re often pretty strange. “I very rarely remember dreams anymore. Over the last year, I haven’t had one that I remembered,” Radcliffe said. “My dreams are always really weird. I remember I was talking to someone a while ago who was telling me about their dream. They said it was mental. ‘I was at work. All this stuff needed getting done. I couldn’t do it all in time.’ I was like, ‘That is the most mundane dream in the whole world.’ ”

When he does dream, however, his subconscious takes on appropriately epic proportions. “My dreams are always, like, I have to save something or save the world or something,” Radcliffe said. “It’s pretty exciting, but it only happens about once a year.”

Even if he is dreaming about saving the world, it’s not as his most famous character, a fact he’s grateful for.

“Before I did the run of ['How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,'] I was dreaming about being Finch and what it would be on stage and those kind of anxiety things,” he said. “No, I’ve never dreamed as Harry, thank God. If I had said ‘yes’ to that question, there would be a lot of people all over the Internet going, ‘Oh, my God, he needs therapy.’ ”

Are you excited to see ‘Woman in Black’? Leave your comment below!

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