Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, November 17, 2008 3:41:48 PM
We heard over and over again during the election that the youth
movement propelled Barack Obama to victory. That turns out to be
somewhat overblown, Pew Research
concludes, but Republicans shouldn’t take much comfort in the
exaggeration. Over the last two presidential elections, the GOP has
lost the youth vote by sharply increasing margins — and may have lost
an entire generation of voters (via
Brian Faughnan)
Obama would have won the election without the wide split in the youth
vote, Pew concludes, although the scope of the victory would have been
narrower. John McCain could have won Indiana and North Carolina but
still would have lost Ohio and Florida. The youth vote comprised 18%
of the electorate, according to CNN’s exit polling, and were 17% in 2004,
almost no change at all. Obama didn’t inspire a spike in
participation, but he did manage to significantly change the voting
pattern in this bloc.
That could spell trouble for Republicans in the future. People tend
to remain in their political paradigm, and the GOP has not spent enough
time making conservatism relevant to the younger voter. This is a
remarkably poor performance, especially on the fiscal impact of
expanded government, by which younger voters will be most affected as
Medicare and Social Security reach their crisis points. Obama’s
success in wooing younger voters to the Democratic Party may result in
a gap which could take Republicans decades to resolve.
Or perhaps not. If Obama decides to pursue mandatory national service on the basis of Rahm Emanuel’s proposal, those same young voters may suddenly discover their inner libertarians
and become more open to reconsidering the Republican message. If they
watch the Obama administration shovel money in corporate bailouts for
the next couple of years, fiscal conservatism may regain its luster.
The Republicans, though, have to have a positive agenda for rational
government, rebuild its credibility, and most of all start paying
attention to younger voters when addressing issues on the stump.
Barack Obama didn’t win their votes by accident two weeks