So many campaigns in the last twenty years were supposed to be the ones that finally expressed the will of young people, except that when it comes time to do actual work and actual voting, the majority of the young fail time and time again. Last cycle it was the groundswell of support behind Howard Dean that never appeared at the polls in Iowa, and this cycle it looks like Sen. Barack Obama is on pace to get screwed by the youth vote that doesn’t show up.
The campaign’s challenge will be converting the excitement of Kizzie and other students into votes. Candidates who have charmed young voters in the past have largely failed when it came to mobilizing them. Interviews with two dozen students as they went back to school at three black colleges found support for Obama, but with summer breaks having ended only recently, the campaign’s fledgling student organizations do not match the enthusiasm.
About 18 students showed up for the first meeting of Students for Barack Obama at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. The group’s volunteer coordinator Kevin Heard, 19, was disappointed with the showing.
“We have to get more people here,” he said. He joined the group, Heard said, because it offers an opportunity “to help a black man who is showing positive images of African American men. By helping someone as positive as he is, I’ll show America that I am positive, too.”
He and others in the group will head to South Carolina this weekend to knock on doors for the candidate.
More representative of the overall level of student activism is Troy Haynes, 21. A Clark Atlanta student who recently moved from New York, he has never cast a vote and is barely paying attention to the presidential race. He did sign onto a Students for Barack Obama group on Facebook, because he thinks that “Obama should show the whole world that a black man can run the United States.”
Has Haynes registered to vote? “Nah, not yet.”
I sense that a lot of people think signing up for an Obama Facebook group and plugging him on their MySpace page will be all it takes, but I feel that at the same time Clinton’s got older supporters actually doing stuff in the real world and that will actually translate to votes.
Hey Ollie, did ya check out the singles scene at the Obama Rallies?
Cynical line of the day: “Let’s face it: Leftie girls are easy.”
Remember, House Parties are for folks old enough to actually own houses.
Party On Dude.
I wonder if Ron Paul and his supporters are serving the same “function” in the other party.
I wonder if Ron Paul and his supporters are serving the same “function” in the other party.
No way, Republicans don’t believe in casual sex, they’re zombies and just reanimate their own dead heroes, like grandpa Fred Thompson, risen from the grave of the Watergate hearings (remember even Nixon said the guy was “dumb as hell”), ridiculous old men like John McCain, or Rudy, they guy who’s claim to fame is marching around a mass grave in Manhattan.
They’re all frickin’ cyborgs. They gotta be. It’s the only explanation for their lack of social responsibility.
They’d be paying more attention if there was a draft right now.
Cynical line of the day: “Let’s face it: Leftie girls are easy.”
Take that, Mitt Romney!
Yes
(Simple answers to simple questions, volume 132,223)
When I worked a “Rock the Vote” event in 1996, the first thing that struck me about the attendees is that they were all fairly liberal campus activists (as opposed to the fairly conservative campus activists who attended the College Republican meetings). In other words, they were the sorts of people who would participate in the process anyway. Which led me to conclude that the “Rock the Vote” event was worthless — or at least that particular one was.
I honestly don’t think young voters are going to get involved in politics unless something happens that directly threatens them — or that might directly benefit them. Otherwise, lost cause.
–|PW|–
My simple answer is: Not if I can help it. I yell at every young kid of voting age I can find and tell them the future starts now. Pause Halo 3 for an hour or so and take part in what it is that make this country what it is and what it should be.