The Youth Vote, the Culture Wars, and Barack Obama

from The American Prospect:



The Youth Vote, the Culture Wars, and Barack Obama

Young voters are particularly important in this election, not because they alone will pick the next president, but because of what their increasingly progressive attitudes suggest about the evolution of politics.

Paul Waldman | November 21, 2007 | web only




It seems that every four years, someone pops up to say that this will be the election determined by the young, that they will mobilize and vote as never before, forcing the candidates to look not to the nursing home and the Elks Club for the crucial votes, but to... well, to wherever it is the kids hang out these days. And after the election, graying commentators note with a contemptuous chuckle that once again, the young stayed home, too busy with their video games and their clubbing and their youthful indiscretions to bother to vote.

There's a fundamental fallacy in any analysis that says that one particular group is the "key" voting bloc, whether it's soccer moms or NASCAR dads or whoever. In a close election, every group is a key group whose votes determine the outcome. We'd now be winding down the Gore presidency had he only been able to persuade 537 more of Florida's Lithuanian haberdashers to come to his side.

But young voters are in fact particularly important in this election, not because they alone will pick the next president, but because of what their attitudes and alliances suggest about the evolution of politics in the next few decades.

Young voters did actually have a great impact in 2004; while overall voter turnout increased four percent from 2000, those under 25 increased their turnout by 11 percent, more than any other age group. Voters under 30 made up 17 percent of the electorate, and John Kerry won them by 54 -45; he lost voters older than 30. In 2000 Gore won young voters by only two points, 48-46.

The movement toward the Democrats isn't just a function of the hypnotizing charisma of the party's last nominee. As a Pew Research Center report detailed earlier this year, young voters are the most Democratic of all age groups, and the most likely to identify as liberal. The number associating themselves with the GOP is the lowest it has been in 20 years. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_youth_vote_the_culture_wars_and_barack_obama