There has been no shortage of Republican post-mortems on the 2012 presidential election — and no shortage of apologists who claimed the party need only change its rhetoric (and stop nominating members of the legitimate-rape caucus) to attract women, minorities and young people.

The latest of these analyses, focused on voters aged 18-29, sometimes falls into the apologist/rebranding trap. It suggests, for example, that abortion is a problematic topic for the G.O.P. because young people “conflate” abortion with Planned Parenthood, contraception and women’s health care in general — as though Republican officeholders and candidates across the country hadn’t done their best to draw that connection.

But the report is far more candid than other post-mortems. It could also be far more helpful if it pushes the G.O.P. to examine the actual policies, rather than the slogans, that turn off young voters.

The report points out that a better Facebook page is not going to help much if voters don’t like your ideas. It says younger voters aren’t particularly wary of “big government,” for example, which has been a central Republican bogeyman for decades.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/why-young-people-dont-vote-republican/?hp