Young voters' interest fizzles

[windansea]

ANN ARBOR — Campaigning for the youth vote has its own peculiar challenges for Megan Wilbur.

Prowling the dormitory hallways of the University of Michigan, Wilbur has been known to discuss Howard Dean’s attributes to half-naked guys in towels. Often, she shouts her get out the vote message over the beeps and gurgles of video games.

But the biggest challenge facing the 21-year-old senior from Ann Arbor is one faced by a generation of political activists — finding a way to motivate young voters.

Hopes for a youth voter boom in 2004 are fading with the campaign of former Democratic front-runner Howard Dean. The legions of young voters inspired by his Internet-focused campaign are dropping out of the process rather than switch their allegiance to another candidate, according to Michigan pollsters.

http://www.detnews.com/2004/politics/0402/04/a01e-55303.htm

[ProfessorPlum]

1. that's what happens when you nominate

someone who, in the words of Molly Ivins, "could take the excitement out of a soccer riot".

But at least he is "safe".

[windansea]

2. that's a pretty big drop off

going into Michigan

[K-W]

5. Lets nominate Janet Jackson then,

pandering to people who dont care is not the answer, making them care is.

[capriccio]

3. Not so fast

From Michelle Goldberg in Salon:

Ron Rapoport, a professor of government at the College of William and Mary, says his research supports the idea that many Dean supporters will go on to become energized party activists like Jabara. "Maverick candidacies recruit new constituencies for the party," he says. "The role of a maverick candidate is to enlarge the party."

(snip)

"We found with supporters of Ross Perot, the more active they were for Ross Perot, the more active they become for the Republican Party," he says. "Their total activity level increased in the major parties after they worked for Perot. In 1988, with people who supported Pat Robertson, the more active they were for Pat Robertson, the more active they became for Bush. For virtually every candidate, the more active someone is for that maverick candidate, the more active they will be for the eventual nominee. Let's say Kerry's the nominee. Someone who does a lot for Dean will not do as much for Kerry as someone who is very active for Kerry, but someone who is very active for Dean will do more for Kerry than someone who is only a little active for Dean. Even if you control for people's attitudes, you still find this effect of carry-over from nomination activity to general election activity."


http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/04/deaniacs/index.html

[windansea]

6. apparently polling numbers contradict that

youth vote up in Iowa....flat in NH...down in Michigan

[sandnsea]

8. Flat in NH???

I guess there was no "new" youth vote across the country at all then. If they were ever going to make a difference, they would have been motivated to turn out in droves in NH. They didn't. And Michigan hasn't even voted yet.

[windansea]

12. what article says

Youth participation in the Iowa caucus quadrupled between 2000 and 2004, with its share of the overall caucus participants growing from 9 percent to 17 percent. A week later, after Dean’s loss in Iowa, youth participation in the New Hampshire primary was up, but just from 13 percent of the voters to 14 percent.

The percentage of likely voters in Saturday’s Michigan caucus younger than 40 has dropped by more than a third since the Iowa caucus, according to East Lansing-based pollster Steve Mitchell, who conducts polls for The Detroit News. Separate polls by Epic-MRA in Lansing found similar results.

[lancdem]

18. The youth vote is the most fickle segment and always has been

They always turn out less than other groups. A candidate takes a huge rusk when he pins his campaign on a demographic that's more likely to let you down than any other.

[windansea]

22. voters under 40???

see previous post

[sandnsea]

25. Funny thing though

"And, contrary to the popular wisdom that Dean had the youth vote locked, they came out voting for Kerry. According to the same poll, 35 percent of these voters intended to vote for Kerry, while only 25 percent said they would back Dean."


http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1484435/20040120/index.jhtml?headlines=true

[windansea]

30. right

but why the big drop off in Michigan??

[lancdem]

13. Are you sure about Iowa?

I thought one of the reasons Dean did poorly was that 18-29-year-olds didn't turn out in expected numbers. Do you have a link?

[windansea]

17. just whats in the article n/t

[lancdem]

9. It will probably take time for them to get over their disappointment

That doesn't happen overnight.

[LuminousX]

4. We were on the verge of a revolution, but it was stopped

No reason to vote if the vote is for the status quo.

We need to just talk about jobs, jobs, jobs and hope that come November we can reach out to the disgruntled young voters.

[K-W]

7. Revolution = Massive overstatement

There was no revolution. I realize that you and many people wanted one, but all the wishing in the world wont turn a clever political campaign by a middle of the road democrat into a revolution.

[LuminousX]

10. How do you define revolution?

For the most part, don't play the definition game with me. I'm tired, frustrated and have a very, very short fuse.

I deal with politics from the Perception Angle. And for the most part the Dean movement was perceived by those involved as being a paradigm shift (AKA revolution) in how things were done.

The snarky comment is not appreciated.

[CWebster]

15. And on top of all that

they want to flog you, when they are not begging you for an ABB vote.

How long can the DLC count on that being their ace in the hole?

[K-W]

21. I define a revolution as a dramatic change in the fundemental structure

of a system. The Dean movement was IMAGINED by many invovled as being a revolution. Certainly it was a change, but calling it a revolution is downright silly. If the world is so hopeless that the Dean movement is as radical a change as we can expect, it is time to give up all hope.

Dean is, was, and always shall be a moderate democrat. He is not a revolutionary. His platform was not revolutionary. He was not calling for revolutionary change. If he wins, his campaign will have been interesting and a change, but not a revolution. If he wins he will act like a moderate liberal in office and certainly not shift any paradigms.

Alot of people who wanted a revolution, it seems you are included here, latched on the the small difference in method of his campaign and projected your ideals on him. Those people gave his campaign a revolutionary feel, but you cant base a revolution on someone who isnt looking to do much changing. The kind of change he was trying to make is a change, but it isnt big. In the end all he was campainging for was a shift within the power structure of the democratic party. I expect far more from a revolution.

[LuminousX]

24. Just because you have higher expectations

doesn't mean my use of the word is an overstatement.


eom/eod

[K-W]

29. That is exactly what it means.

Its like calling an ice-cube and ice-berg. You cheapen the word revolution by applying it so frivoulously.

[LuminousX]

32. And thus we see why interest has waned.

Bless you and your kind.

[K-W]

36. Interest has wained because I dont over exagerate things?

I would love to know exactly how that happened. I hate to break it to you, but the Dean movement was going to fail no matter what. Even if he wins, the enthusiastic dean supporters would be majorly disappointed when Dean got into office and acted like the moderate democrat he is.

Next time base your movement around someone who actually wants to change things and I wont mock you and your referring to supporting a middle of the road democrat as a 'revolution'.

You are much worse for interest than me. You support a view of politics that encourages people to give up and stop participating. By pretending that Dean is something more than he is you set up unreasonable expectations in the system.

[LuminousX]

37. You are beautiful

[janx]

28. So a revolution cannot be inspired by a moderate Democrat?

Who on earth do you think lit the fire at the begninning of this campaign?

It was Howard Dean.

He wasn't a guy in a ski mask with a fistful of rocks.

[K-W]

31. Lit the fire?

He got people who were dissolusioned about politics to be politically active. That is great, and lessons should be learned by it, but how on earth can you call that a revolution? Getting someone elected who is not revolutionary is not a revolutionary act.

I suppose it is possible for the Dean supporters to start taking actual revolutionary steps, in which case he would have started a revolutionary movement in a sense, but that doesnt make the Dean campaign a revolution.

[deutsey]

38. I liken it somewhat to Kennedy

No, I don't say that Dean is like JFK.

But Kennedy, a Cold Warrior who dragged his feet on civil rights, helped to inspire (inadvertantly, in my opinion) a generation of anti-war and civil rights activists with a lot of his rhetoric coming out of traditional liberalism. I had the impression from the Dean campaign's talk of unabashedly embracing traditional principles supported by the Democratic Party that he could also elicit the same (perhaps unintended) response as Kennedy did.

I base this on what I see in the volunteers involved in Dean's campaign, so it's subjective, I know...

[wabeewoman]

47. In these times

telling the TRUTH is revolutionary.

[Spider Jerusalem]

39. Therein lies the problem with perception.

Perception creates reality. But perception is often flawed. Your perception is fine, for you, but to many of those who don't share it there was nothing revolutionary in Dean's campaign, merely evolutionary (intelligent adaptation to and effective harnessing of relatively new communications technology as campaigning tool, for the most part). And, whatever the merits of his campaign, the fact remains that an intelligent and neutral observer, on examination of his record, can only conclude that Dr. Dean occupies a moderate to centre-right position on the political spectrum, and is hardly the liberal messiah his supporters portray him as. One also finds it rather disturbing that many in the Dean camp seem to find the campaign more important than the candidate; one would almost say that they're incapable of seeing the trees for the forest.

Something that's rather ironic...I've seen Dean supporters accuse the supporters of other candidates of "being incapable of independent thought", yet the attitudes and words of many of these same people constitute a most glaring example of the psychological phenomenon known as "groupthink" (characteristics of which, if you are unfamiliar with the term, include: Having an illusion of invulnerability; belief in the group's morality; use of mindguards to protect the group from negative information, etc).

[LuminousX]

40. Perception is flawed

But remember the topic that has brought this up, young voters waning interest. I am not saying that it is a good thing. I am not supporting people giving up. I am proposing that they felt, like I do, that Dean was the beginning of a revolution, uh, sorry that word seems to set some people off, beginning of a small but significant paradigm shift in how the political process worked. It is exciting and thrilling to be on the cusp of something new.

With Kerry surging ahead, we aren't on the cusp of anything new, so their interest goes back to the things they have control over - their Everquest character, what channel is on the TV, and how they spend their social time.

That is my theory.

Delving into whether or not the Dean campaign inspired groupthink or whether what one set of Dean supporters said can or could be used against another set of Dean supporters is a political thesis in and of itself.

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. I'm sure Eugene McCarthy's supporters felt the same way...

but then Chicago happened, Humphrey got nominated, and the US got five and a half years of Richard Nixon.

Rather a shame that younger people feel so disconnected from the political process. In the worst-case scenario, if Junior gets re-elected and activates Selective Service, I'm sure a lot of them will be kicking themselves for not voting. Personally, I've made it a point to vote in every election since I was eligible...cast my first vote for Clinton, in '96. I sort of view voting and participation in the political process as being essentially a duty incumbent upon those of us who are citizens. If we get to elect our leaders, we owe it to ourselves to be well-informed and see to it that the best candidate for the job wins. Obviously, you and I have differing opinions on exactly whom that is, but at least we both have the same ultimate goal. (Wish all the various factions here could realise that...gets a bit bloody incivil at times, what with all the infighting...)

[deutsey]

16. Same kind of thing happened in '64

to the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party.

The Dems were afraid of offending Dixiecrats, so they didn't recognize the delegates from this group that emerged from civil rights movement to challenge the old-boy group of Dixiecratic delegates.

In my opinion, they're now skittish about offending the corporate establishment.

[SharonAnn]

19. Few revolutions are won with the first battle (Iowa).

Revolutionaries have started their thinking and analyzing, they're beginning to understand that thoughts can turn to actions, they're learning that you have to have a strategy and appropriate tactics inorder to win. These are all important components of a successful revolution.

Now they can look at how to get back on track. I hope we can yet get Dean nominated but if not, then I'll support the nominee and work like heck to improve the Democratic Party and what it stands for. There are lots of battlegrounds to be won. Local, state, national battles. Progressive battles. Battles against sexism, racism, even ageism (young people are cool).

Lots to be done yet and I think many of these young voters will participate in the coming battles. They're just a little disappointed right now and need the opportunity to recover their political energy.

[LuminousX]

34. That is a very valid point. Not all revolutions have a Concord

and Lexington to start them off.

[Skidmore]

11. Perhaps instead of incessantly snarling about how "my guy isn't

winning and therefore the system is screwed up", my fellow Dean supporters would focus on taking that energy to the general election, it would have an impact on our youth. Lose the soccer game mentality. Whatever is the outcome of this primary season, the general election is for keeps. Taking the ball and going home is not an option.

[deutsey]

23. Sorry, but I've thought our political system is screwed up

for some time now, going back to when I was college student during the Reagan era.

But I am still voting Democratic in November because I believe if we don't get involved in the process, and in droves this time, the Busheviks will steal another election and American society will be dramatically altered by a rightwing agenda for decades to come.

But the Dems have got to do more than just put up "our guy" against "their guy." They've got to inspire us to get involved beyond just showing up on Election Day or at rallies. Over the past few decades it's been shown that participation in civic groups, volunteer efforts, community organizing, etc., has been steadily declining.

I think if we're going to make a genuine, substantive change, the Democratic Party needs to stop thinking it's all about a cult of personality around a candidate and start creating opportunities that revitalize citizen participation over consumer indoctrination.

[LuminousX]

27. BINGO! Exactly!!

the Democratic Party needs to stop thinking it's all about a cult of personality around a candidate that start creating opportunities that revitalize citizen participation over consumer indoctrination.

This is the finest expression of what I want/expect from the party.

[NNN0LHI]

14. Perhaps it will pick back up again when the draft is reinstated? n/t

[windansea]

20. LOL

probably correct

[fishnfla]

26. I knew it

I knew Dean would get the nomination and I knew his political neophyte supporters would take their ball and go home. No matter though, plenty of voters are falling off the * bandwagon.

The whole Dean campaign reminds me of the tech bubble of 2000: plenty of inflated profit and overwrought hype in an internet phenomenon, but no substantive earnings to show for it. And the investors got burned when it imploded.

[deutsey]

33. Let's not forget that the Busheviks are masters of deception,

division, and diversion.

I seem to recall Bush I bombing badly in 1988 and Dukakis trouncing him in the polls. Lee Atwater et al., turned that around rather quickly by playing real nasty.

I hope the Democratic nominee, whomever it is, is prepared for the same kinds of tactics (and worse) from BushRoveCo.

[LuminousX]

35. Thanks for your insightful analysis

[nolabels]

41. So get off the Internet and stop typing on that keyboard already

Just kidding, good observations of what others have told you to look for, but there might be things you are missing. Just because it isn't a money maker now, does not mean it's a bust. Lots of things in society and civilizations ebb and flow. Learning to temper one expectations with reality is all that is necessary to get there, where ever that is.

I am very pumped for the PC and the Internet, these things under our fingertips are maybe more significant than the invention of the wheel.

[RetroLounge]

48. Thanks for your snarky insults.

and then you wonder why some supporters don't give a shit about your candidate...

[Mr. Brown of MD]

42. This is a glass half-empty/half-full kind of thing

OK, so it's not entirely like the glass is half-empty or half-full; the two things don't amount to the same. But I think it depends on how you want to look at the situation.

It's not really surprising to learn that the youth vote is not what it could have been, given how Dean has fallen. If people can get excited once, I think they can get excited again, even if it's another man besides Dean. This is just the primaries, and probably not all of those people who supported Dean did much looking into the other candidates. Sucks, but OK - that's how it is, let's figure out what to do about it rather than sneer at people who feel that way. That's only going to turn them off more.

If even 10% of the new, young, Dean supporters remain Dem all the way through to November, that's a chunk I'd happily take. And it's a chunk that we would not have in our corner if not for Dean and his campaign and all of his young supporters. I don't know exactly how many new people one can claim he brought in, but if he brought in 500,000 and we are sure to keep at least 50,000 of those, that's fine with me. If the number is greater, or the percentage, even better.

I'd really like to see the eventual nominee reach out to young voters the way that Dean did. I think all of the other three front-runners have the capability to excite young people who usually don't pay much attention to the political process. Trust me, there's no love for Bush among these people - we just need to make them believe that things are really going to change if a Dem gets in the White House, enough that they want to go vote. Otherwise we're just going to see this cycle of "young people don't vote, so candidates ignore young people, so young people don't vote" ad nauseum. If that continues, our job is that much harder.

We've got some lemons. Let's make some lemonade, put up a sign by the road, and see who stops by.

-CollegeDude
Who thinks a good majority of young voters are ABB without knowing it

[windansea]

45. good points n/t

[Beaker]

43. too bad for them- apparently they have some growing up yet to do-

too bad they don't realize how important this election might be in terms of the quality of life they might enjoy(or not) throughout the rest of their one chance at life...if they wanna spend it paying the bills for the lil'dictators giveaways to the uber-rich, or put their one life on the line for him & his buddies' war whims- well then that's their decision...let'em take their ball and go home, if they don't like the rules or the game everyone is playing...I'm too old/infirmed to be drafted, i'm a white guy with more equity than debt, and i've had a vasectomy- i'll get by fine, and I won't be needing any abortion rights.

some day they'll learn

[TexasSissy]

46. The young ones typically don't vote, anyway. As Dean now knows.

[rocktop15]

49. My thoughts at 18

As I was browsing the forums, this post jumped out at me. I'm 18 and a freshman in college. For the past two years I've been reading book after book on current events and the like. The main reason I got into politics was because I live in southeast Tennessee where there are more ignorant sheep than anywhere else in America.

My parents are strong Democrats and I originally had the simple idealogy thought that "Republicans.......bad.....Democrats.........good." After studying up on current issues, I can phrase that sentence more eloquently now than, say, two years ago. But back to the topic, it irks me beyond belief that my age group does not vote (and the ones that do mainly voted Bush.) In the past 3 months, I have bombarded two of my friends email boxes with link after link of horrible things that Bush and Co. has done or said. That's two votes that Bush will not be receiving. I donated ten dollars to the DNC. I pledged some money to Dean earlier, but now think I will be giving that to Clark.

A buddy of mine asked me..."Why do you care?" I asked him a series of questions such as "Do you want to be paying off the deficit when we're fifty years old?" He said no. I then stated "Well, there are things you and I can do to lessen the burden that is going to affect us." I try to do unto others, as I would want them to do unto me. I belive voting is one of the greatest things you can do to help America out.

[windansea]

50. the article said under 40 voter

participation would be down in Michigan

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. In my college teaching days

I found that discouragingly few students were really interested in anything that hadn't been approved by the pop culture. If it wasn't sports, top ten movies, fashion, drinking, pop music, drugs, sex, TV, and maybe, depending on the person, fundie religion or fraternity/sorority activities, they just weren't interested.

Oh, occasionally, you'd get people briefly excited about a topic that was in the news a lot --tropical rainforests were a big issue one year--, but then it was back to being mind-numbed by the media. When I asked some students about this, they claimed that it was because their lives were so "stressful." These were mostly suburban and small town white kids from the Pacific Northwest, by the way.

Yet when I asked some of those same kids (when interviewing them for possible study abroad) what the most stressful experience in their lives had been, they'd say, "Uh, I don't know. Maybe moving away from home for the first time?"

I was far from the only faculty member with this complaint.

Howard Dean was being built up in the media for months before Iowa. The media-inspired bandwagon effect took hold, and it looked as if all the "cool kids" were going for Dean. I doubt that many of them even knew what he stood for, if my memories of some of the "bandwagon" attendees at anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the 1960s serve me correctly.

Another DUer posted a story (and I didn't bookmark the thread) about how one campus in Iowa had 50 students pledged to caucus for Dean and only 3 of them showed up. I don't recall what was on TV that night, but I bet there was either some "must see TV" on or midterms in a couple of large-enrollment classes or a major campus social event, and caucusing just didn't seem "important."

When Dean came in 3rd in Iowa, he was no longer "cool," since only winners are cool in the college world, and the average student lost interest and returned to such weighty matters as gearing up for the fraternity/sorority ski trip or looking for a place with a projection TV for watching the Super Bowl.

I know that there are a lot of college and high school student DUers who are active, informed, and aware. But I think they would tell you that they are a minority on their own campuses and that most of their fellow students don't care about politics or much of anything else that is outside the pop culture mainstream.

[DemBones DemBones]

52. My experiences teaching at colleges are very similar,

though I taught at colleges in the South. For that matter, it was pretty much the case when I was in college in the 60's, even though I went to a very liberal and serious college (no frats, no football, etc.) Of course, we didn't have the privilege of voting at age 18, so most of us had no political voice.

We were very concerned about the war in Viet Nam, though, and what Lyndon Johnson was doing in regard to the war, and that was largely because those of us who were male were eligible for the draft at age 18. By 1966-67, there were few of us who didn't know someone serving in SE Asia or someone who'd already done a tour.

Others said it earlier but I'll say it again: bring back the draft and more young people will be likely to vote.