P. Diddy Politics -- Oct. 10, 2004

  -- A weekly feature on This Week.

Rapper, actor, and fashion designer Sean Combs (a.k.a. "Puff Daddy" or "P-Diddy") has made a fortune marketing to the "hip-hop" crowd. This year he's on a mission to convince them that voting is cool.

Sean Combs: "We know we're gonna be the deciding factor in who is the next president. Why? Because it's simply in the numbers: We have not voted in these numbers before.

"I call ourselves 'The Forgotten Ones' because politicians don't speak to us, they don't handle our true needs, because they don't think we're going to vote.

"When I first started the overall Citizen Change and the Vote or Die campaign, everybody was like, 'Young people don't vote, they're not gonna care, they're lazy,' but that's not the truth. They just needed somebody to talk to them."

Sean Combs [taped clip]: "On Nov. 2, we're facing a matter of life or death. Is it that serious? Hell yes, it's that serious. When you vote a president into office, you're literally putting your life and the lives of you family into somebody else's hands. Now that's serious. On Nov. 2, vote or die."

Sean Combs: "You know, 50 Cent has more power than a Kerry or Bush in these communities. Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio — they wanted to use their power in a creative way. We're bigger than Kerry, we're bigger than Bush."

Sean Combs [taped clip]: "Politicians listen to numbers because those numbers equal votes. Well, according to the recording industry's statistics, the hip-hop nation is over 40 million strong. So it doesn't matter how politicians want to break it down. You want to talk demographics like 'soccer moms' and 'nascar dads?' We're larger than them. You want to talk about focused interest groups like the NRA and AARP? We eat them — and you see how much Bush and Kerry are sweating those groups. Come on, y'all. Please, let's get hip-hop on there."

Sean Combs: "It's going to be a historical day come Nov. 2. And it's going to change the face of politics, from Nov. 3 on. People are going to be chasing the vote of the forgotten ones."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Stewart: "For those of you who missed the debate, there are several ways you could summarize it. One of them would be this: "

Stewart: [shows Cheney photo] "Grrr!"

Stewart: [shows Edwards photo] "Golly!"

Stewart: [Shows Cheney photo] "Rarh!"

Stewart: [Shows Edwards photo] "Jeepers!"