More on the PEW Study (Refuting the Haters)

The PEW study I posted about yesterday is getting a lot of play. Kevin Drum blogged it, as did The Carpetbagger Report, and Marc Ambinder, all favorably.

Not all the coverage was favorable, however, and I want to point you to the excellent response by Kevin Bondelli to those who doubt the findings.

Here are the fallacies that these critics of the youth vote seem overly fond of:

1. Young people don’t vote, so it doesn’t matter if they identify as Democrats. Even if we accepted the untrue statement that young people don’t vote, they do eventually grow up, this isn’t Peter Pan. Since research in fact has shown that party identification for the most part stays consistent throughout life, it still should be troubling to conservatives.
2. The silly kids are Democrats now that they are young and don’t know any better, but they’ll grow out of it. Research says otherwise my conservative friends.
3. Not enough young people will vote to affect the 2008 election, since Gore and Kerry didn’t win with the youth vote. Have you not heard of a trend line? Surber actually shows the youth vote increasing from 2000 to 2004, he should know better. With elections as close as they are, as well as the examples of Democratic candidates in 2006 that did win because of the youth vote, I don’t know how they can ignore it.

Definitely worth a read today.