This year could see more younger voters than every before coming out on Election Day, and Jean Schulz is bringing in the young guns to help out with celebrity PSAs in conjunction with Peanuts Rocks the Vote: Green, who she met at Comic-Con in July; Whoopi Goldberg, a friend from way back when Charles Schulz was a guest on her show; and singer JoJo, who Jean Schulz ran into and befriended at a fashion show.

“Things are skewing younger, and more young people are involved,” Schulz says. “I think Barack Obama has really energized a younger vote since before the primaries. They say that he’s appealing to people who don’t have home phones, so they’re wondering about the validity of the recent polling data because they use people’s home phones. But the important thing is to have people look at the issues.”

Schulz’s iconic husband, the man she lovingly refers to as “Sparky,” was always interested in politics, she says, and was a “nominal Republican.” But even more, the Peanuts strips that dealt with the campaigns from the 1960s to the ‘80s reflected a certain prescience about the evolution of politics. In one strip from the 1960s, Lucy talks about redecorating the White House — “This was before Kennedy was elected,” Schulz says. And in a March strip from 1984, Lucy foretells that we’ll probably have had a woman president by the time she grows up. That may still be a little ways off, but with Hillary Clinton’s run in the Democratic primaries and the political world’s keen interest in Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, it might not be that far. “But wouldn’t you have thought in 1984 that it might have happened sooner?” Schulz asks.

She mentions that she’s as politically engaged as anyone right now, but is more interested in the issues, especially climate control. “It’s barely — BARELY — on the radar screen,” Schulz says. “People talk about it, yes. We have some local initiatives here in Sonoma County in California, trying to reduce our carbon footprint and people are doing a lot of work, but it’s a lot of talk. To me, that hasn’t risen to the level of political discourse that it should have. With Rock the Vote, the online campaign is cute, and voting for the characters is fun, but I’m hoping that people really take it seriously and realize that their futures, it’s going to matter to them.”

Visitors to the Peanuts Rock the Vote site can choose between Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and Sally for president. Who would have been Charles Schulz’s pick? Probably Linus, according to Jean Schulz. In the 1972 TV special You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown (which debuts on a special-edition DVD today), Linus was way ahead in the race until he made the most disastrous of the political mistakes: the verbal gaffe. During a speech, instead of talking about politics, he brings up the Great Pumpkin when he finally has an audience and it all falls apart. “He completely loses that election and much to Lucy’s dismay, she probably wanted to run out of the auditorium screaming,” Schulz says. “I think he needs another chance. Now, he’s probably a little politically wiser, and he knows that you say what your advisers tell you to say, not what you really believe.”