CSM- Frank Luntz says 62 percent of youth voters were for KERRY

[liveoaktx]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1213/p20s02-usmb.html?s=mespo

(Yeah, no respect for him, but I enjoyed reading the first 2 paragraphs of this article)

Pollster Frank Luntz, whose Washington research firm works with Republican political candidates, was last Friday's guest. Here are excerpts from his remarks:
On the importance of voters aged 18-29, based on the Nov. 2 election:

"They are going to be the battleground for the next four years. first-time youth voters, 62 percent supported Kerry; 35 percent supported Bush. They are, for the Democrats, the beginning of a core constituency if they hope to return to power. The Democratic Party cannot win without the youth voting in even larger numbers."

On the news-consumption habits of young voters:

"Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but are not reading your newspapers. And I am sorry, too, the anchors of the networks, but they are not watching them, either. A greater degree with every passing month are getting their information from the Internet."

[Pirate Smile]

1. We need to get them to identify themselves with the Democratic

Party now so it will hopefully last their entire lives.

[chicagiana]

2. And 51 percent of 30 and overs supported Kerry ...

So of course Bush won ;-)

[DeepModem Mom]

3. This contradicts an LBN thread about kids being more conservative --

an idea I didn't buy, just based on personal experience, and some studies I've read. The trouble with some polling is that when polling ages 18 to 29, they're not separating Gen Y (born 1980 and after) and Gen X, which (present company and millions of others excluded) is more conservative.

[LeftyMom]

4. More up and coming!

A little story from the polling place I worked at:

A father comes in with his teenage daughter. She has a Kerry shirt on and a Kerry pin on her skirt. Reluctantly (I don't want to discourage young people from getting political) I ask her if she would mind covering up her shirt and removing her button, as electioneering within the polling place is against the rules. She politely declines. (County instructions say all I can do is ask and I can't eject people for electioneering unless they are making a scene, in which case i'm to call the cops. She's not making a scene. I've done my job.) I ask if she's here to vote. Nope, she's seventeen, she just wanted to be there when Dad came in to vote. I hand her a registration form (since she'll be eligible in a few months) and tell her I'd prefer she wear a non-political shirt when I see her in two years. She smiles.

I also had young voters (looked to be late teens, early 20's at most) who had me look up thier friends and family to seee if they'd come in yet and whipped out thier cell phones to call in the stragglers. One young man came in four times, with his mother and father, brother, wife and in-laws to make sure they all voted. He looked to be younger than me (in which case this was likely his first presidential election.)