WASHINGTON – Television and film producer Norman Lear has joined forces with some of the Internet's most popular sites to encourage 18-year-olds to register and vote in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Although Lear has long been associated with Democratic politics, the Declare Yourself outreach campaign and Web site, www.DeclareYourself.com, will be non-partisan. Both are outgrowths of campaigns Lear sponsored in 2004 and 2006 to encourage young adults to vote.

The campaign is partnering with such popular online destinations as Yahoo!, MySpace, YouTube, Google, Friendster, Evite and Good Search to help drive to young people, particularly first-time voters, to the Declare Yourself Web site. There, visitors will be able to download voter registration information and forms, as well as obtain information on presidential candidates and their positions.

The campaign also includes such media partners as Clear Channel and Comedy Central.

Serving as spokespeople for the project are two young television stars, Golden Globe-winner America Ferrera, star of ABC's “Ugly Betty” series, and Hayden Panettiere, who plays a cheerleader who will not die on NBC's “Heroes” and who turns 18 this year.

“Those people we call our forefathers said loud and clear the success of this democratic experiment depended upon an informed and involved citizenry,” said Lear, who owns an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Lear said he hopes to making registering as much a “rite of passage” for young adults as getting a driver's license or buying alcohol legally.

While previous campaigns have helped register more than 1 million voters, Lear said he expects to significantly exceed that number with the help of the broad range of Internet and media partnerships, which are new to the latest campaign.

Lear estimated the cost of the non-profit campaign at $4 million, which he expects to raise through corporate donations.

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MAMARONECK, N.Y. (AP) – Democrat John Edwards criticized radio host Don Imus Wednesday for making racially and sexually charged comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, declaring “it was not OK to say this, period.”

But the former North Carolina senator stopped short of saying he would refuse to appear as a guest on the show in the future, saying more time was needed to see how the controversy would be resolved.

His comments came as a rival candidate, front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, launched an online petition drive to support the Rutgers players.

“Don Imus's comments about them were nothing more than small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism,” Clinton wrote on her campaign Web site. “They showed a disregard for basic decency and were disrespectful and degrading to African Americans and women everywhere.”

Imus unleashed a storm of criticism last week for calling the Rutgers players “nappy headed hos” on his popular morning show on April 4, the morning after the team lost the national championship to Tennessee.

Because the show has been a popular forum for politicians over the years, several presidential contenders have weighed in on the controversy in recent days.

Clinton's online petition also could help boost her campaign's list of e-mail contacts, expanding the reach of her political message and providing new names to solicit for contributions.

Clinton has often been on the receiving end of Imus's insults – he's referred to her on the air as a “bucktoothed witch Satan” and Bill Clinton's “fat phony wife.”

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Edwards said that he had heard a lot of racist language since he was a boy growing up in the segregated South.

“What I have learned from my own experience and over time is that if you tolerate this kind of language in your presence, you are essentially sowing the seeds of intolerance,” he said. “It also says something about America and the state of grace in America today that there is even a debate going on about whether it was OK to say this. it was not OK to say this, period.”