Why do Dems always put so much faith in the "youth vote"?

[CTyankee]

This is not meant to insult younger voters. I truly would like to explore this issue further on DU:

Over the years I have been voting in presidential elections, as a Democrat I have heard over and over again that we will get the "youth vote." Then, on Election Day we hear the same mantra: the youth vote didn't materialize (in the numbers we expected) and that's one big reason why we lost.

First, we need to look realistically at the "youth vote" population. Younger people tend to be more mobile geographically. They are just starting out in the workforce and can easily move across the country for a better job opportunity, typically not tied down by kids of their own yet, they are not encumbered by a mortgage so any moving is easier, and they haven't had years of formative conditioning of their political views.

while I don't discount the many young voters who are focused on the political campaigns, I think there are just too many distractions in the lives of people just starting out in life on their own for them to have the focus of voters who are settled and have family and home ownership obligations.

Mary Matalan cynically brought this up just the other day with respect to Obama's campaign and I cringed. I don't want her to be right, but I wonder if we are being realistic in our assessment of the youth vote. I do remember well that even in 1972, when the Vietnam War was still raging and with the draft still in existence (Congress abolished it in 1973), there was not the huge turnout of young people Dems had predicted and McGovern ended up winning only one state! This, despite the fact that the 26th Amendment to the Constitution lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, had been ratified in 1971.

I would love to see studies that have been done on this issue. I am positing some of my observations and I want to be proved WRONG. But I'm just wondering if we're setting ourselves up for another major disappointment and misguided condemnation of younger voters...

[leftofcool]

1. Kerry counted on them and they didn't show up to vote

[Radical Activist]

21. Yes, they did.

The youth vote turn out was much higher than previous elections.

[NoodleBoy]

2. the sources I've read haven't said the youth vote hasn't materialized.

In fact, the youth vote was the only catagory in which John Kerry increased his overall percentage from Al Gore's performance, and 2006 was a pivotal year for youth turnout.

Matalin is a little bit right though-- some of my campaign staffer friends have said Obama lost NH because his youth coordinator stupidly didn't do a single thing to reach out to non-college youth, costing him that election where in Iowa that demographic contributed to his margin of victory.

[katsy]

3. This is an interesting read:

http://www.newvotersproject.org/voting-101



"But things are looking up. Of the approximately $4 billion spent in the 2004 election cycle, it’s estimated that $50 million was targeted towards young voters – a mere fraction of the total dollars spent, but the most ever targeted by organizations, political parties and candidates towards young people. With an 11 percentage point increase in turnout, it seems that those who spent resources on the youth vote saw a significant return on their investment."

[CTyankee]

7. Interesting read. However, I remember "rock the vote" in elections past and wonder

why that wasn't successful in bringing in more young voters in larger numbers.

The student PIRG organizations are important. But again that pretty much leaves out the 18-21 year olds who aren't in college. How do they get their connection to the campaigns if they are working all hours bagging groceries at a non-unionized supermarket?

Also, I didn't see the 11% voter increase in 2004 broken down by age category, so we just don't know in which population there was an actual increase.

[seabeyond]

4. dems tend to be younger and idealistic, repugs old and settled. youth is dems market

they need youth in vote. since reagan the repugs have gone after the market and has made inroads, but hadnt been like that in the past.

[Echo In Light]

5. Many young voters are duped into political involvement via "spectator" democracy

Because at that level, it's merely cosmetic, oversimplified, relegating dire matters to the level of slogan chanting for sports teams, or who gets voted off the "reality" island.

The young who understand how the entire facade is a grotesque, rigged joke naturally aren't going to espouse the same old platitudes and high praise for corporate endorsed candidates who, irrespective of which side of the Name Brand they're on, will only serve their corporate pay masters, and not we the people.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Especially when they use rock stars and other personalities to entice them.

[Echo In Light]

17. Yes. Even with the best of intentions it perpetuates a false framework of democracy

[RB TexLa]

6. It's an illness Democrats come down with every 4 years. Maybe it's like an addict who keeps putting

money in a slot machine, yes one day it could pay off but usually it just take your money.

[theoldman]

8. Back in the 60's youth was anyone under 30.

Today it is anyone under 40. I am afraid that Obama has been concentrating on under 25. These are the ones that do not show up to vote.

[LiberalFighter]

9. Young people don't have the mind set to vote in general. PERIOD

They are more interested in partying and thinking they are adults. For the most part they don't want to be bogged down with responsibilities or time.

Then there are those who have jobs and just can't find time. They haven't learned how to schedule their time. And there are those who just don't want to be bothered with trivial matters.

It could also be that single young people don't find time because they have more responsibilities that generally can be split when there are couples.

[CTyankee]

11. AND unless their parents have drummed it into them, where else are they going to get it?

It used to be that a kid out of high school wasn't necessarily expected to go to college (up until relatively recently, that was the case). Unionized work conditioned them to become Democrats and brought them along in the political process. Now that's gone for the most part.

[LiberalFighter]

31. Schools and parents need to do a better job. But with future being dim it may be a steep hill.

[gmudem]

34. I appreciate the stereotyping

But as an ACTUAL young person I think I might know a little bit more about this than some of you. I'm absolutely going to vote this November, just as I voted for Edwards on Super Tuesday. There are many, many politically involved students on my campus and a lot of us have and will vote. Now of course there are plenty of apathetic students who have no interest in politics, just like there are people like that in any age group.

If young people don't vote, it's not because they don't have the time it's because they are apathetic in the first place and are just using business as an excuse not to vote. I'm just as busy as many other students but I still find the time to pay attention to politics and to be involved.

Another fact is that Obama is exciting young voters like no other candidate we have seen in our generation. A lot of us will be voting for him. OTOH, I know all of 2 Clinton supporters and I wouldn't exactly call them dyed-in-the-wool liberals.

[Romulox]

12. Young people are easy to fool with the same hackneyed themes and tricks--

older voters have seen "change" candidates before, for instance.

[otherlander]

14. You don't have to have seen a "change" candidate before.

You just have to look at the voting records (bad). And who their friends are (homophobes).

-Otherlander, the world's most reluctant Obama supporter

[Solon]

40. You are NOT taking that title away from me dammit!

:D

[gmudem]

35. That's why we tend not to support Hillary.

Funny how young voters can see through her crap more than older voters do.

[riverdeep]

13. They generally don't see how politics relates to their life.

Thanks in part to a school system that alienates them from pretty much most subject matter, making it unrelatable. Politics is considered boring, and requires thought.

I don't think it's a matter of not having spare time. Old people have a lot of spare time, that's one reason they are a huge political block. I had a more spare time when I was younger, could go somewhere on a whim.

[Echo In Light]

16. "Busy-busy-busy" is encouraged and chosen under the propaganda of "need" when it's actually "want"

I get a kick outta all the people who complain about how they're soooo busy: a cursory glance at their priorities usually reveals a great deal of blind adherence to corporate culture directives/coercion.

And yes, I agree with you, people aren't educated/informed as to how the political is personal.

[UTUSN]

15. K&R #1. They have no history. They think nobody's thought what they think before. n/t

[unpossibles]

18. my problem with the assumption of "the youth vote didn't show" thing

is that a lot of younger voters are renters and many are college students, and that same segment of the population is who tends to have to vote provisionally and/or get challenged at the polls or during registration, etc. Being in touch with new technologies, I would also bet that many younger voters may vote early and/or absentee.

In other words, while I think some don't show, I often wonder how many just don't get counted or get thrown out. Then again, I am a cynic and I live in Ohio where Blackwell had pulled some nasty tricks to get people off the rolls last time.

[Texas Hill Country]

19. i dont know... they shouldnt.

[Indenturedebtor]

20. You all may be surprised

Generations have different personalities. Pretty much everyone I know my age and a few years younger votes at least in the GE. We have a far more dire view of our future than any recent generation. Well we have a far more dire future.

[Zynx]

27. Things looked pretty dire in the 1970s and the 1930s too.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

22. Why do Dems put so much faith in the working class white vote?

Why do Dems suck up to angry white dudes?

They don't come through for us either.

[PVnRT]

23. Jesus Fucking Christ

And, once again, the Boomers are allowed to trash anyone under 30 with nary a protest.

I've really fucking had it with this shit. I'm sick of seeing this generalizing horseshit being thrown around by boomers who think they are better than all of us, who think we should just shut the fuck up and do what the say. We are the first generation that will not have better lives than are parents, whose generation, by the way, is busy fucking our futures over in Washington. Do you really need to ask why we're cynical?

CTYankee, you may have started this with the best of intentions, but it's been successfully hijacked. This post is not directed at you.

[Winterblues]

24. Why don't you study a little history before you rant like this

Historically people under twenty five do not vote in the same percentages as those over twenty five do..That is a fact...Let us hope that those younger people decide to get more involved but I don't really see it happening. When you look at the radical groups protesting such as Code Pink where are the young ones? :shrug: out drinking beer somewhere or home watching American Idol but very few are actually out in the streets or cvamped out at their Representative's office. Hell most don't even know they have a Representative or who that person might be...Wish it were different but that is just the way it is and has been forever..

[WildEyedLiberal]

32. Could you throw any more patronizing stereotypes in your nasty post?

"Go study some history" - because all us dumbass younguns never crack a book. This History major is getting fucking tired of the "young people are ignorant of anything prior to 1995" bullshit.

"Where are you when Code Pink is protesting?" Probably studying for a college exam or sweating bullets trying to find a good summer internship, because - obviously you haven't noticed, being old and secure in your career - it takes a HELL of a lot more than a college degree to get a job that pays worth a damn. If you aren't a cum laude honors student with at least one, preferably two prestigious summer internships under your belt, you probably aren't going to get a job that's worth a shit, college degree or no.

"Oh they're probably out drinking beer or watching American Idol." I guess no one over 30 drinks alcohol or enjoys leisure time? Only those stupid, careless 20somethings dare to *gasp* watch television or *gasp* enjoy themselves? Also, stop with the "American Idol" bullshit. Most of the people I know who watch tons of TV are retired old people who have time to kill - gee, come to think of it, those are the people who have the time to "protest" with Code Pink, too.

"Hell most don't even know they have a Representative" That is so ignorant and ageist it doesn't even bear a response.

DU has turned into nothing but a morass of bitter old middle aged whiners with nothing better to do than reminisce about the "good old days" when their generation was the end all and fucking be all of political activism. So you got high and had some orgies in the 60s while throwing up a peace sign? Well lah de fucking dah. Then you all got old and voted for Reagan and Bush. What revolutionairies! :sarcasm:

[CTyankee]

29. I'd be interested in knowing more about your age group, your experience as a young voter

and some of your ideas. I do want to avoid generalizations. I suspect -- but I do not know for sure -- that this phenomenom is something that can be logically explained and therefore, our (those of us who are older) expectations are not reasonable.

I cast my first vote in 1960 for JFK. But I was then, and continue to be, a political junkie. My own antiwar and abortion rights activism greatly influenced my kids and all of them married staunch Democrats. I have one 9 year old political activist granddaughter! So I guess it's in our genes! That's why I seek others' ideas. But I know I can't expect everyone to be as "addicted" to politics as I am!

[WildEyedLiberal]

33. Do you know how hard it is to vote as a college student?

That's the number one reason young people (18-25 year olds who are mostly in college) don't vote: they are away from their home precinct and the County Clerks offices of both their home county and their college county make it exceedingly difficult for them to vote absentee or register in their college county. The CC in my college town is a Repuke who hates college students and does every barely-legal (and sometimes illegal) thing he can to suppress and disenfranchise students who try to register to vote in this county, because of course we vote 65-35 Dem and he might be out of a job if we all got to vote against his ass. I can't imagine this is the only college town in America like this. A friend of mine tried to vote absentee but his county jerked around with sending him his form so long that by the time he got it the deadline had passed. I have several stories like this. The only reason I've been able to vote in every election is because I live only an hour away from my college town and drive home to vote at the polls in person. However, not every one lives so close to home and not everyone has a car. The precincts are also typically divided in such a way that the polling place is somewhere that the average student without a car has a lot of trouble finding or getting to. Young voters are often disenfranchised, pure and simple, but because fighting for the rights of young, mostly white, mostly middle-to-upper class college students isn't nearly as sexy or "progressive" as sticking up for minority disenfrancisement, it goes unnoticed and unprotested. Meanwhile, all the boomers bitch about how we whippersnappers are too lazy and stupid to bother to vote.

[CTyankee]

36. where are you in America? I am not a boomer, I am older than that, but I do not consider

you lazy and stupid. I know you want to vote.

Your story is very distressing. Have you contacted anybody in the state Democratic Party? I would hope that you have.

I hate to hear this. It makes me fear for us Dems in the GE.

Not a good thing at all.

[WildEyedLiberal]

38. I went to the University of Illinois - about 40,000 students

I can't imagine the situation is any better at any other comparably large universities, unless the County Clerk actually goes out of his/her way to HELP students, not hinder them. It might be easier at small super-liberal colleges in liberal areas, but I don't know - my personal college experience was one of countless roadblocks being thrown in the way of students excercising their right to vote.

Our College Dems have protested some of the County Clerk's more nefarious doings, though to little avail. In 2004 the College Democrats registered about 3,000 students to vote, and he threw out about half of those registrations for some specious reason I can't recall - he claimed that the College Dems didn't fill out their part of the forms correctly or some shit. He succeeded in wasting enough time that by the time the mess was sorted out, it was after the final deadline to register as a new voter in the county, and so 1500 students, who thought they were doing the right thing and registering to vote, were disenfranchised just like that. The College Dems protested but it was too late to get those students a ballot for '04.

It is very distressing :( I hope with the enthusiasm that Obama generates among my generation (and it is very real enthusiasm - I was a big Kerry fan but I have to admit that most of my friends are excited for Obama in a way they haven't been for Gore or Kerry) that students will band together in large enough groups to confront this bullying head on.

[nemo137]

39. They have voter reg machines at the Undergrad now,

and the College Dems were out on the Quad before the primary, but I still voted by absentee ballot in the primary. I will be changing my registration once the semester's over, though.

[WildEyedLiberal]

43. I definitely recommend voting as soon as you can

Otherwise you're likely to get jerked around. I voted in person in both 2004 and 2006, and if you can get your reg changed to Champaign County over the summer, defintiely do it, since that will give you enough time to allow for any chance that Sheldon decides to jack with you. Even then I'd recommend seeing if you could vote early in person (that's what I did in my home county in 2004, I voted at the courthouse in October) just in case they decide to fuck with the precincts. That happened to a friend of mine (from Urbana) for the primary; he got the runaround from the polling place staffers about where specifically he was supposed to vote and ended up missing his chance.

[RaleighNCDUer]

41. Not all the boomers.

Of course, I may not be representative of my generation because I was never entranced by Reagan (though grudgingly impressed with his political skills in his first term), I never yearned to be a yuppie, and have always earned below the mean for my age group. And living near the university I see how active and involved young folks are. (Which feels real strange when I say it - in my head, I'm always 29). At least 50% of the volunteers that I've seen at the Obama HQ here are under 25. And that's in a place that is hardly a hotbed of activism.

Please believe, we're not all hopeless.

[WildEyedLiberal]

42. Thanks :)

I appreciate your words of support.

Hell, my parents are boomers and they're as liberal and supportive of young people as they come. So I know some of you are in our corner :)

I just get tired of being scapegoated here on DU for everything that's wrong with American politics when it's not our generation who caused this mess and more likely than not we are intimidated from doing anything about it.

[readmoreoften]

44. How is it hard to vote as a college student? Register where you go to school.

I never had a problem voting as a college student. I've also never had a hard time registering to vote and I've voted in about 8 different locations in my lifetime--different cities and states.

[WildEyedLiberal]

45. Did you not read my whole post?

I'm glad you've never had a hard time registering to vote, but that's not always the case, especially if there's an anti-student County Clerk. Also, often the polling places are not even on campus - which makes getting there, if you don't have a car, rather difficult.

For full-time students who don't have vehicles who have to try to find time in the middle of a busy week to get to the polls, it's not as easy as it is for the rest of us, sorry. It's not impossible, but it is not easy, either, and I'd at least appreciate an acknowledgment of that fact instead of the constant condescension from older people who blame us for the crappy state of the nation right now.

[readmoreoften]

48. I don't blame young people for the state of the nation. Do they not have booths on campus anymore?

When I was in college we had booths brought to us. It's vote manipulation if that's not the case. No one is to blame for this situation except for the perpetrators. Urban Outfitters ran a t-shirt in 2004 that said "Voting is for Old People." CEO was a big-time Republican.

The fact that younger folks don't know much about labor and are kept in a perpetual state of fear and confusion is not an accident. Your generation has been lied to like no generation in history. Unfortunately I also think that it's been sheltered as well. The result is a feeling of disempowerment and confusion. When people are overwhelmed and feel that there are no solutions, they are completely ripe for manipulation.

Sorry about the shitty county clerk. (Yes, I'd only perused your post quickly. Sorry about that!)

[PVnRT]

51. I don't know about where he lives

but where I am, polling places are generally nowhere within a half mile of the campus in town, and bus service generally just exists to take people to the mall and back.

[PVnRT]

50. My first vote was for Clinton in 1996, two months after turning 18

But even before that, I remember getting excited about him back in 1992, because he made an effort to reach out to younger voters (odd, now, considering his recent statements that young, idealistic people can't be trusted). Before that, I remember doing a phone poll for Nickelodeon in elementary school to vote for Dukakis along with a couple of friends of mine.

I think a lot of why younger voters feel disengaged from the process is the attitude of many politicians towards them, embodied by a lot of the responses in this thread. Older generations always call younger ones lazy, naive and stupid, and the natural reaction to that is to be contrarian. Younger voters get very cynical when they're told that, but ten minutes later are asked for their vote. The reaction becomes, "Well, why the hell should I? You don't care."

That's become even more prevalent now, with my generation and the one just behind me destined to be the first ones to not do as well as their parents. The other poster in this subthread touched on a lot of that, and my experience was the same. I worked temp factory jobs for shit pay and no health insurance (fun when you have diabetes) for six months after getting a master's in chemical engineering from a top-flight school. That almost never happened thirty years ago, but it's becoming more frequent now.

College students, as the other poster pointed out, do have difficulty in voting, regardless of being Democrat or Republican. Local officials many times (around here, I saw it first hand) DO NOT WANT THEM TO VOTE. They see the college kids as "interlopers" who are "interfering" with their election. I suggested in 2006 to the Congressional campaign I was volunteering with (while working those temp jobs) that we should head to Indiana State's campus and register voters. Their response, in somewhat nicer terms, was "Fuck them, they don't vote anyway." This despite on three occasions I can think of where students from the school wandered by the office, as well as the three or four other students there volunteering regularly.

It seems to frequently that the "solution" to getting them involved is berating them for not caring or chastising them for being too idealistic. Fuck that, if you're young and not idealistic, you're an idiot. Most of the politicians now were young and idealistic, why do they expect us to suddenly be different? Why lecture us on our how they know better and how we're just naive and lazy?

The party that realizes that younger voters are an enormous mine of votes and starts earnestly reaching out to them is going to start winning elections; that's why I went to Obama after Edwards dropped out. Most of us know that older people have a wealth of experience, we just don't like being browbeaten with it, and that's all too often what happens.

[mitchum]

25. Because Dems have won every election since 18 year olds gained the right to vote

Oops...nevermind

[Zynx]

26. The problem is the youth vote is not monolithic. We win it in a close election maybe 55-45, but

it is not large enough by itself to carry us across the finish line. Also, don't look at the youth vote as a college vote. For every kid in one of the big universities like Berkley or Madison you have plenty in rural areas and small towns who simply put will not vote the same way.

[Reverend_Smitty]

28. and lets not forget the non-college bound young people

30 years ago they could get decent paying union jobs, now they are barely scraping by with minimum wage jobs...it's quite easy to feel disenfranchised and disconnected from the system when you are "surviving" like that.

[RaleighNCDUer]

30. Why would you listen to anything that Mary Matalan OR her

DLC apologist husband have to say about anything?

She will paint anything Democratic as negatively as possible - and he will paint anything Democratic as negatively as possible.

[CTyankee]

37. Because it seems like what she is saying is true.

I wouldn't bring it up if it were not a concern of mine. We have had this meme in the Dem party since at least 1972 and it hasn't panned out the way we wanted it to. We need to back it up with action if we are going to say it. I just dont' want to wake up on another day after a national election and hear that the "youth vote didn't deliver for the Democratic Party."

Is that a good enough reason for you?

[Quantess]

46. A vote is a vote!

I mean, come on. Haven't you come to grips with the reality that a smart vote and an uninformed vote carry equal weight?
A mistaken vote and a falsified vote and an earnest vote all count equally.

Young people tend to vote the way their parents do. I have nothing to back me up on this, just observation. However, young people tend to be more progressive in their values than older people, which could make the difference, such as, a parent voting republican and their child voting democratic.

Edit: A vote is a vote is a vote.

[RaleighNCDUer]

52. There you have it.

"Young people tend to vote the way their parents do. ...young people tend to be more progressive in their values than older people, which could make the difference, such as, a parent voting republican and their child voting democratic."

If you discourage the young from participating, when they are amenable to change, they will, by default, CONTINUE voting as their parents did. IF they are involved, they are just as likely to go their own way.

The vast majority self identify with their parents' party, just as they identify with their parents' religion, and only begin to look outside that when they get away from home. So if we want to grow the party, we NEED to encourage youth participation.

If it is a truism that people grow more conservative as they get older, we MUST bring in fresh blood to counterbalance the loss of older dems who are just tired of fighting.

[ColbertWatcher]

47. Why do Republicans hate young people? n/t

[Echo In Light]

49. They have the utmost respect for them...until they're born. Then it's military time!

"Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers." ~ George Carlin

[ColbertWatcher]

53. Truer words have never been posted! n/t