Appeals to youth spawn nascent 'Dean Generation'

[pruner]

By Emily L. Zimbrick
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Claiming to be "lost" with the leadership of the current administration, high school and college students have begun to rally behind presidential hopeful Howard Dean and have dubbed themselves "Generation Dean."
    
The Dean campaign kicked off its seven-city "Raise the Roots" campaign last week in an effort to rally younger voters.
    
More than 12,000 high school and college-age students are members of the grass-roots, decentralized Generation Dean, which was started by American University sophomore Michael Whitney, who began Students for Dean at the District-based campus. It later evolved into Generation Dean.

<snip>

A 2003 Harvard University Institute of Politics study reported that young voters have the potential to be the swing vote in the 2004 presidential election. Nearly 60 percent of those polled said they would vote in 2004, compared to the actual 32 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 24 who voted in 2000.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20031006-101709-8926r.htm

[ixion]

1. that's great news...

we need every vote we can get to get the Bush cabal out of the WH.

[Meshuga]

3. Too bad that Dean won't cut it

Dean's vague "Take back this country" and "power to the people" mantra will not be enough to beat Bush.

Rove will have the easiest time painting Dean as the lunatic with a short fuse who wants to raise taxes on the middle class and who is weak on national security.

[dkf]

4. See TNR here dude. And TNR is not exactly Dean's biggest fan.

DOES THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE FAVOR DEAN?: Today's edition of Roll Call reports that a group of Republican pollsters believes Howard Dean represents a serious threat to George W. Bush. Interestingly, the pollsters make two of the points we've been flogging here for the past several months: 1) Dean is the one guy capable of exciting the Democratic base without alienating moderates--since the substance of most of his policy positions is pretty moderate. 2) Dean's appeal has less to do with specific policies than with his personal charisma and apparent plainspoken-ness. The way we see it, this fact leaves Dean a ton of room to moderate himself on substance without alienating his more liberal supporters.

One interesting point the pollsters bring up that we hadn't even considered is that Dean may actually be well-suited to pick up the marginal electoral-college states a Democrat needs to win the presidency. The article cites Nevada and West Virginia in particular--the former because Dean could focus his anti-Bush vitriol on the administration's plans to turn the state into a nuclear waste dump, and the latter because Dean's moderate position on gun control could bring blue-collar voters back into the Democratic fold. (Al Gore narrowly lost the traditionally Democratic state in 2000 thanks to defections among these voters.)

What's truly amazing is that Nevada and West Virginia are (theoretically) the only two states Bush carried in 2000 that Dean would need to carry in order to win the electoral college. Meanwhile, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to think Dean would hold his own in the states Gore won. After all, the winning margin in many of the states Gore carried only narrowly--Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, even Florida--was depressed because of defections to Nader or broader liberal dissatisfaction with Gore. Dean's aggressive criticism of the president should only help him here.

Maybe the broader point is that in red/blue America, a reasonably competent Democratic nominee starts with close to 250 electoral college votes. If he can just slice off a couple more here and there, he can make a pretty compelling run for the White House.

posted 1:30 p.m.

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml

[polpilot]

10. As his demo opponents/detractors have been successful?????????

Dean '04...The New Democratic Leader of The NEW Democratic Party

[La_Serpiente]

2. It's about time young people get up and vote

It's about time the get up and vote.

[LuminousX]

6. I think one of the biggest problems

a candidate faces is how to motivate cynical people. The youth are definately cynical. They see Washington as a place where hypocrisy runs rampant. Dean has found a way to motivate them. Mainly, I believe, by giving them the power to take his message and campaign in their own ways with it.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

5. the 'Pepsi Generation' was a more sincere marketing effort.

[JaneQPublic]

7. And what is Kerry's winning approach to getting out the youth vote?

I would think Democrats would get behind anyone who can inspire young people to get involved in the political process -- and work for a Democrat to beat the incumbent Republican -- especially after years of young people not even bothering to register and vote.

To compare Dean's success in appealing to young voters to the "Pepsi Generation" smacks of mere sour grapes from a supporter of a candidate who drew only one-tenth the Iowa college students that Dean did.

[LuminousX]

8. Kerry is banking on...

A lot of self-motivation from students.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/student_checklist.pdf

Understandable to a point. College students aren't exactly the best investment for a presidential campaign. Dean is probably just throwing money away. There is no reason for Kerry or any other candidates to reach out to the youth vote. Nope. Nothing to see here.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

9. At least the marketing of Pepsi is honest - you don't buy Pepsi & get Coke

That's my point.

Of course it is good to bring young people into the process -- but not if you are lying and misrepresenting yourself to do so -- that will just disillusion them more in the long run.