Regardless of who gets the nomination for either party, the biggest storyline of the 2008 primary election so far has been voter turnout, particularly in the 18-29-year-old voting bloc. In all of the early primary and caucus states young voters have been coming to the polls in record numbers.

The elusive youth vote has been manifesting itself for a number of reasons – increased interest in politics, appealing candidates – but one influence that almost certainly isn’t responsible for the record turnout is “get out the vote” campaigns that attempt to make voting seem sexy.

Remember P. Diddy’s “Vote or Die!” campaign in 2004? During that election season, Diddy’s mohawked head was splashed over t-shirts and television screens everywhere with that famous life or death proposition. “Vote or Die!” was a more menacing outgrowth of the successful “Rock the Vote” political advocacy group, which was started in 1990 by music industry members who were concerned about censorship issues. On the surface, “Vote or Die!” was a mild success, as a slightly larger proportion of young voters participated in 2004 than had in the 2000 presidential election. But in reality, the increased political participation was probably more of a response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than anything else.

In the end, voters recognized “Voter or Die!” for what it was: a superficial marketing campaign that tried to make voting seem, as Diddy put it, “hot and sexy.” And joining the cause were Paris Hilton and Ludacris, both of whom, it was later revealed, failed to even register to vote before the 2004 general election (and 50 Cent, another “Vote or Die!” spokesperson, was barred from voting because he was a convicted felon). The campaign was widely parodied, most notably by South Park, which showed a gun-toting Diddy threatening voters:

Vote or Die! Vote or Die!
Rock the vote, or else I’m gonna stick a knife through your eye!

…Vote or Die! Vote or Die!
You can’t run from a ’38; go ahead and try!

Why did Diddy care so much about voter participation in 2004, and why hasn’t “Vote or Die!” reemerged again this year? That’s anyone’s guess; the campaign disappeared as mysteriously as it began.

This year, MTV decided to go in a different direction with their effort to get people to the polls; they’ve launched a campaign called “Choose or Lose” (slightly less hostile than “Vote or Die”), through which a “Street Team” of 51 citizen journalists are deployed around the country to report on the primaries. And with a $700,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, participants were given laptops, video cameras and cell phones.

“Choose or Lose” is a pretty modest effort, and it’s unlikely to sway too many voters, but it’s also unlikely to become the butt of jokes like “Vote or Die.” Instead of trying to frame voting as something that it isn’t, it puts the camera in the hands of other voters, producing a realistic and honest (if a bit boring) insight into the electoral process.