By Michael Xenos
As Scott mentioned in an earlier post, we had a touch of bad weather in my part of the country early in the semester, which has led me to become the last of our regular contributors to welcome you to the blog and our ongoing conversations at Everyday Politics. Two things that Gustav has not dampened, however, are my efforts to keep an eye out for items of everyday politics that you all may find interesting, and my enthusiasm for this blog as a place to help you talk about and make sense of American Politics.
One thing most readers of this blog probably live with everyday is the unique experience of being a young voter in the midst of an election season where there is an unprecedented amount of attention being showered upon young people. When you go to the campaign websites of either Barack Obama or John McCain, for example, you find special pages devoted to young people with snappy titles like Generation Obama or Future Leaders for McCain. In the blog section of the Generation Obama page, you'll even get the opportunity (rare on a campaign website) to leave comments on the posts. Moreover, in addition to familiar campaigns such as MTV's Rock the Vote, the PIRGs' New Voters Project, and Norman Lear's Declare Yourself, a number of more novel and irreverent efforts are also fighting for your attention.
For instance, 19-year-old filmmaker David Burstein is currently touring the country with his inspiring film, 18 in 08, which features interviews with everyday young people as well as an impressive array of national political figures and celebrities underscoring the importance of youth voting. Of course, there is also a vibrant and feature-filled website associated with the film as well. On it, visitors can learn about the film, get information on registering to vote, and find links to information on the candidates. Rounding out the site's effort to connect with young people, it also offers links to things like an interesting election-themed online game, and a rich supply of online video content. If your tastes run a bit edgier, you don't feel like watching a whole movie about voting, and you don't mind a little coarse language, you can simply surf over to BotherVoting.org. There you can find a selection of cheeky and over-the-top exhortations to exercise your right to vote that come in the form of hip e-cards that you can send to friends and family (which is believed to be a popular form of communication among young people). Naturally, this site too features links to voter registration information and sites like Rock the Vote.
These campaigns are important. But it is worth noting young people are also no strangers to targeted marketing efforts. As a result, they are likely to consider more than just whether or not celebrities (or others) are telling them they should vote when they decide whether they will participate in this election. As James Carville wryly notes in 18 in 08, young people are incredibly adept at figuring out when people are trying to influence them, and their tolerance for shallow efforts is lower than that of older folks.
In other words, it's important to recognize that young people also care about issues, and by and large youth care about many of the same issues as other Americans. Just take the last presidential election for example. Whether you read the youth turnout in 2004 glass as half empty (the proportion of all votes cast that came from young people was relatively unchanged at under 20%), or half full (the proportion of young people casting ballots increased significantly from 42.3 to 51%), survey evidence indicates that rather than turning out in response to Rock the Vote, or offers from Michael Moore to do their laundry while they voted, young people were mainly driven to the polls by their interest in issues like the Iraq War. This time around, concerns about the economy may well drive turnout among cash-strapped young people who are either starting or getting ready to start their careers.
To be sure, as the CNN video clip points out, in this election season, youth issue voting and campaigns for the youth vote will go hand in hand, just as they did in 2004. But it is also worth considering how these things fit together in the broader context of prior elections and races for lesser offices. As also discussed in Burstein's 18 in 08, there is a curious chicken-and-egg relationship implicated here. In prior years, people have speculated that more young people would vote if politicians and candidates simply paid more attention to them. Others have pointed to relatively low turnout rates among younger voters compared to older groups as the primary explanation for the lack of attention from politicians.
Given that both major candidates are clearly courting the youth vote aggressively this year, it will be interesting to see how these dynamics play out, and what role younger voters (such as many of you reading this blog) will play.
Go Youth Vote! Awesome post. You should check out Unigo's election vidoes. They feature students from universities across the country speaking candidly and openly about the candidates, issues they care about and what this election means to them.
Here is a sample of newly-submitted election videos from the University of Southern California: http://www.unigo.com/Explorer/Videos/VideoDirectory.aspx?CollegeId=164
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