Mark Penn's Granny Fetish

Gargh! I had a rebuttal to Mark Penn's Op-Ed in The Politico last week all set to go and then I closed out the tab on it. You'll have to take my word that it was brilliant and thoughtful and eloquent. Now you'll have to settle for the short and clunky version.

Penn's Thesis: Old people (aka "Active Grannies") are making up a larger and larger portion of the electorate (as lifespans are elongated and the Boomers start to retire) and they are voting less reliably Democratic. The candidates both need to work on courting older voters.

Problems with said thesis:

1. Penn never really proves his point about "Active Grannies," which he at first defines as "empty nesters, " but often expands to anyone over 65 or anyone over 45 to prove his point. You can't label half the electorate a microtrend. This essay is a big mushy fruit salad of comparisons between apples, oranges and pineapples.
2. This is already a failed strategy. Penn tried this strategy while at the helm of the Clinton primary campaign. It lost out to a wave of young voters, who Penn himself derided as "looking like Facebook." Well those Facebook voters made the difference for Obama over Clinton's "active grannies" and even rivaled the 65+ demographic in Iowa - the straw that broke this strategy's back.
3. Does Penn really think that the campaigns won't reach out to older voters? Every campaign since the beginning of time has ignored youth and focused on the senior vote. The idea that the campaigns would ignore senior voters is ridiculous on its face.

The most important thing to note here is that this is a highly reactive, defensive Op-Ed. Penn is responding to what he sees as threatening changes in the partisan habits of older age demographics. This change was entirely foreseeable. As the Greatest and Silent Generations - traditionally more progressive - age out, and the heavily divided Boomers age into their senior years, we would expect to see the senior vote divide more between the parties, especially in close elections.

What he neglects is that we need to change that dynamic. We shouldn't only react to what is happening in the older segments of the electorate, we should work to lay the groundwork for future changes. Time and resources invested now in making young voters life long progressives will continue to pay dividends decades into the future. When the Millennials start to retire, the "reliable senior" demographic will become progressive along with them as they replace the more conservative Gen X.

This is what Penn is missing. That in order to stop playing defense at the older end of the spectrum, we need to invest in offense courting younger people at the lower end of the age spectrum. The campaigns will court older voters with door knocks, TV ads, mailers, robo-calls and more. They don't need any extra encouragement on that front. It's young people - that investment in the future often forsaken by consultants like Penn - that needs far more attention from our political class. The best defense is a good offense.