This Is Why We Matter

As Paul Rogat Loeb notes:


"I suspect you’ve heard about the stunning margin of the youth vote – how 18-29 year-olds supported Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by a massive 60% to 38% difference. They did so in every region of the country, from a 74-25% split in the East to a 51-48% margin in the South. They provided the winning margin for Tester in Montana and Webb in Virginia, and helped put Claire McCaskill over the top in Missouri. Had it been up to them, the Democrats would have also won Senate races in Tennessee, Arizona, and Nevada; Ned Lamont would have defeated Joe Lieberman, and a slew of additional House seats would have changed hands. The Democrats would have elected Senators from 26 states, with Republicans carrying Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and the Maine seat of moderate Olympia Snow. Studies suggest that young voters tend to keep the political identifications they develop in their first few elections (for instance, the wave of then-young adults who helped cascade Reagan into office have remained more conservative than their Vietnam-era peers). So if Democrats address the legitimate needs of this generation, they have a chance to make it a key part of a continuing majority."


It is staggering numbers such as these that highlight why young people are such a vital part of the Democratic Party. I think that Democrats in general do a fairly decent job of addressing the needs of this generation. This is especially true in the realm of energy and environmental policy where they are light years ahead of their Republican counterparts.

The real problem is that young people are too often forgotten when it comes to getting people out to the polls because conventional wisdom holds that we are inconsistent at best when it comes to actually casting votes.

However, without any numbers at the tips of my fingers to back me up, I am not sure that this school of thought applies to our generation. As Governor Ritter noted last week, if just a few hundred more young people had voted in Florida in 2000, the world would be a very different place today. In light of that experience, it seems that our generation is more aware than our predecessors that voting and being engaged in politics are meaningful activities to undertake. As such, campaigns should realize that focusing their GOTV efforts on young people can reap substantial benefits, up to and including victory.

Yet, it is not incumbent upon campaigns alone to get young people out to vote. We need to motivate ourselves and our peers. The question is whether we can be intelligent and creative enough to use the tools we have to accomplish this goal. I hope some of you have some ideas because on this issue I am all out.