WaPo Gets One Right. Will The Parties Come Around?

The Washington Post gets one right. Two years late, they finally wrote the story they should have written in 2004 about young voter turnout.

But in the 2004 presidential election, when the overall electorate showed a four-percentage-point increase in turnout from 2000, the turnout rate among people ages 18 to 24 increased by 11 points -- to 47 percent from 36 percent.

The spike was attributed, in part, to intense voter turnout efforts and a highly polarized election. But people who study this generation -- known as Generation Y, millennials and even DotNets -- say it is also disposed to be more politically active and passionate.

The way the article reads, it also looks like the parties are recognizing that their future lies less in talking to 60 year olds in Florida than in building in-roads with young voters and building a base that can last for a generation or more.

It's good to see this story now, but would have been even better 2 years ago when this actually happened. A lot of organizations that did good work getting out young voters might have been better able to fundraise, and our infrastructure would have been a lot stronger for it. As it is, lots of folks got cold feet. And lets not forget the obvious - we wouldn't have had to sit through two years of know-nothing pundits, consultants, and politicians making baseless claims about the apathy of young voters.

Either way, this is good to see. Maybe we'll actually see some decent coverage about young voters this election cycle.