Demographics As Destiny and Investing in Youth

Sorry my posting is somewhat light this week. It's getting to be convention crunch time and I'm spending an inordinate amount of time doing non blogging things like responding to press requests, figuring out my schedule for Denver, and planning for the Fall and 2009 (yeah, it's that time already).

I wanted to make a quick comment about Chris Bower's mostly excellent article on the changing demographics of the country and the Democratic coalition. In his piece, Bowers says (emphasis mine):

Given that Republicans consolidated a shrinking majority against a series of rising minorities, unless the scapegoating stops, their electoral future appears bleak. In 1992 Latinos and Asians made up only 3 percent of the electorate, but in 2006 they accounted for 10 percent. In 1990, according to the National Survey of Religious Identification conducted by the City University of New York, only 10 percent of the country self-identified as non-Christian. According to a 2001 follow-up from CUNY as well as a 2008 study conducted by the Pew Forum on religion and American life, that number had increased to 22-23 percent of the national population. Although it receives somewhat less fanfare, the national drift away from Christian self-identification is changing the cultural face of America even more rapidly than the large influx of Latino and Asian immigrants. Combined, these two trends are changing the cultural and political structure of America with such alacrity that, according to a 2005 study by Greenberg Quinlin Rosner, "OMG! How Generation Y Is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era," only 39 percent of Americans born between 1965 and 1994 (inclusive) self-identify as both white and Christian, compared with 66 percent of Americans born in 1964 or earlier. Given the partisan voting habits of nonwhites and non-Christians discussed in the previous paragraph, it isn't hard to see that Republicans are facing a slow-motion electoral tidal wave that is turning the country nearly 1 percent more Democratic every year, regardless of specific political conditions.

It is from this rising tide that Obama should find his victory. For all the talk of his appeal to the youth vote, the truth is that overwhelming Democratic advantages among young voters are a derivative of pro-Democratic demographics, such as nonwhites and non-Christians (and single women and the LGBT population) forming a disproportionate share of the youth vote.

I'm probably being overly sensitive here, but this seems like a truly weird sentence. Obama is ahead among the youth vote, a key factor in his victory, but the youth vote is not a significant political demographic because his support among young voters has more to do with race/gender/sexuality than it does age. This implication in the piece is that demographics, not organizing, is destiny. Not just for Obama, but for the Democratic Party coalition.

It's not that I think Bowers is wrong - not at all. Breaking the Democratic coalition, and the youth vote, down into these constituent parts is truly useful and meaningful. But the idea that the larger entity of "the youth vote" as an age bracket is not equally meaningful seems wrong to me.

These demographics groups that Bowers identifies tend to vote at lower rates than do others - even more so among younger members. Realizing the power of these demographic shifts requires organizing. And when it comes to organizing, at both a tactical and strategic level, age matters in electoral politics.

Messaging
Younger voters worry about many of the same issues as older voters (the economy, health care, the war), but our focus is different than that of our elders. We worry about college debt/tuition, gas prices, entry level jobs, our friends in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. And there are some issues that are almost uniquely generational like Global Climate Change and Green jobs. This requires candidates to deploy tailored (microtargeted) messages on these issues to younger audiences. That microtargeting must take into account a number of factors, including age.

Tactics
The method a campaign uses to reach young voters - text message, social networks, radio, cable TV - are also largely determined by one's age. This is as true for single white females as it is for LGBT Latinos.

Strategy
The biggest factor of all: whether or not a campaign should build a strategy around, and resources in reaching, young voters is purely a decision made based on age and voting reliability. Most Democratic campaigns and committees still view the youth vote as a mythical unicorn and want candidates with limited resources to cut youth off of their walk lists. That's an indiscriminate decision based purely on age.

Politics is Changing
This is all to say nothing of the huge generational shifts happening in our politics now. Obama vs. McCain is one instance. Older civil rights groups/leaders vs. younger ones is another. We've seen older and younger feminists duking it out this year as well. Within pretty much all the demographic categories Bowers identifies, there are generational shifts occurring and age is a factor.

So yes, I agree with Bowers that these demographic trends are hugely important and matter. And in an ideal world in which we only look at demographic trends and not the causes behind them or what is required to realize the potential of those trends, they probably matter a whole lot more than age. But we live and operate in a political environment in which age matters - for strategy, tactics and messaging. Successful youth outreach requires that we recognize that distinction - whatever a persons race, religion, sexuality or marital status.