Limiting John McCain's Youth Potential

In the whole 2008 Republican candidate field, with the possible exception of Mike Huckabee, John McCain has the most potential to minimize the Democratic advantage among Millennials. So I was pretty dismayed when he secred the nomination. Now, I don't expect that McCain can beat either Obama or Clinton among 18 - 29 year olds. Not by a long shot. But of all the potential GOP candidates, he's got what it takes to limit our gains among Millennials in a potential blow-out year.

Here's what the Rock the Vote poll said about John McCain's standing among Millenials:

Opportunities for GOP gains (pdf)

By any measure, the Republican Party is at a disadvantage with these voters. Just 28% identify themselves as Republican versus 47% who identify themselves as Democrats. On the generic Congressional ballot, a majority (52%) select the Democrats while just 27% select the Republicans. On trial ballots, McCain is at a 12-point disadvantage to Hillary Clinton (35%-47%) and a 30-point disadvantage to Barack Obama (27%-57%). In addition, his voters are notably less excited about his candidacy than supporters of Clinton or Obama. On a qualities comparison with Hillary Clinton, McCain has an advantage on just two qualities – being honest and trustworthy (35%-33%) and being a typical politician (32%-29%), in which his 7-point deficit is a positive. On a qualities comparison with Barack Obama, McCain has an advantage on just one issue – having the right experience to be President (48%-28%). In addition, McCain has a lower favorable rating (44%) than Congress (46%), Hillary Clinton (51%), and Obama (69%).

However, there are opportunities for McCain and Republicans to make gains with these voters. Only 15% of young voter are strongly unfavorable to McCain and nearly one-quarter of voters have (24%) have no image of him. This offers a considerable number of targets for persuasion about the merits of McCain as a candidate. In a similar way, on the McCain-Clinton ballot, only 35% of young voters are “strong” Clinton supporters while 43% are “strong” Obama supporters on the McCain-Obama ballot. In either case, more than half of the young electorate has not yet made a definitive choice.

So while McCain generally drags behind both of the Dem candidates, and the GOP in general is in deep shit with young voters, McCain has a few outs, and he could turn a bad hand into something playable (which would in itself be something of a win, considering the shape the GOP is in). Here's why:

John McCain was consistently one of the strongest performers in the GOP field among conservative youth. He won the youth vote in more states than any other GOP contender on Super Tuesday. He won swing states like New Hampshire and Florida, and in many places where he didn't win he was highly competitive. So while his excitement level may not be as high as Clinton's or Obama's, he's by no means a hated or unacceptable choice for conservative, right-leaning youth, and even independent youth.

John McCain is perceived by voters and the media to be a maverick with good credentials on some top youth issues. Rightly or wrongly, John McCain has an image of a contrarian and as such can embrace the Bush agenda with much more impunity. He is perceived to be excellent on the environment, better on immigration than any other GOP candidate, and a government reformer thanks to his campaign finance work.

The one instance in which we've been able to really see how young people respond directly to his messages on these issues was at the MTV/MySpace candidate dialogue. He knocked it out of the park and actually gained ground among the young voters watching and participating in the debate (in the audience and online), despite holding unpopular views on the issue of Iraq.

John McCain is not a culture war crank. Say what you want about McCain, but he knows how to play the pop culture ropes better than most Republicans. In the last few years, he's made high profile appearances in hit movies like the Wedding Crashers, hit TV shows like 24, and he's been on the Daily Show more times than I can count, where Jon Stewart pays him undue deference as a "maverick."

He's also got a daughter in her mid 20s who looks, talks and writes like a regular person and not a Stepford Wife in-training. In a media environment where youth vote stories tend to revolve around the children of candidates as much as field organizing or poll numbers, I expect to see the McCain Blogettes dominate the media coverage during the general election.

In short, if John McCain puts together an even half decent peer-to-peer operation to reach young voters, he actually has a shot at slowing down the flow of young voters out of the Republican and into the Democratic Party. I'm talking specifically about the top of the ticket, but a few thousand votes here and there, particularly in red states, can have an enormous impact on down-ballot races. We can't let that happen.

John Kerry beat bush 54 - 45 percent among young voters in 2004. I want to double that margin in 2008, and I want young voters driving Democrats to victory across the country in state and local races. That means we need to figure out how to debunk McCain's "independent" persona. This is going to be hard, and the media is going to do everything they can to prevent it from happening. So how do we do it?