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What About Hillary?

It's not a big secret that most of the folks who hang around Future Majority are either Edwards or Obama supporters. But if Future Majority really is going to be ground zero for the progressive youth movement in the blogosphere and a think tank on youth outreach for progressive campaigns, we can't exclude a serious look at Hillary Clinton from our discussions.

A March poll of 1,300 18-24 years olds showed that Obama leads the youth demographic overall with 35%, but Hillary trails closely with 29% (meanwhile, Edwards may as well be relegated to the second tier among young voters, coming in with only 9%). And a March poll (pdf) by Young Voter Strategies and Women's Voices Women Vote showed Clinton with a substantial lead over Obama among Millennial women - 26% to 13%. PEW data posted by Chris Bowers while examining his "Clinton Inflated Poll Theory," bears this out: Obama leads among 18-29 overall, but Hillary seems to have an advantage among women.

I've heard anecdotal evidence suggesting that young women are inspired by the prospect of a women president, but turned off personally by Hillary, but the numbers seem to show again and again that she has a base of support among Millennial women, and she's highly competitive overall among young voters.

In terms of how that support is manifesting in the grassroots, a student operation - Students for Hillary - is starting to get off the ground, but that's about all some quick googling turns up (Interestingly, WomenforHillary.com redirects to Barack Obama's website). She's #2 among Democratic candidates on the social networking sites (behind Barack, but ahead of all the Republican candidates combined). Beyond that, there's not a whole lot out there. Nothing on her site about youth outreach (though other candidates don't have readily apparent youth areas either) or links to any grassroots efforts.

Time Magazine is reporting that Hillary is retooling her strategy in light of Obama's fundraising successes, and some of the new outreach efforts look like maybe an attempt to reach younger supporters ($100 Party on the Pier fundraisers). In all honesty, this seems more like McCain's new program than a savvy way to reach young supporters (who probably can't drop a hundred large on a candidate), but its another thing to consider.

None of this is to make definitive judgments on Hillary's youth outreach. It will take a lot more investigation on my part before I'm ready to really start talking critically about Hillary's youth outreach or the strength of her grassroots. This is all just to say that there are signs - some positive, some negative - of Hillary's strength among Millennials, and we have to include Hillary in our discussions here on Future Majority.

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April 28th, 2007 10:36am
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I'll admit I loved HRC

Submitted by Ally (not verified) on Sat, 2007-04-28 16:37.

Ok… I’ll admit it - though sometimes my face turns red when I do. I really loved Hillary. In fact up until she declared her candidacy for the Prez I still loved HRC. I think she has a lot to offer and she’s a stellar Senator of NY.

I remember this time when I was a much smaller person and she was fighting the health care issue and they’d pretty much torn her apart and we see the footage all the time of her nearly in tears where she said “surly the ONE PLACE we can agree is about our children…” she was of course talking about CHIP and finally taking care of the kids who’s parents couldn’t afford to take care of them. I feel like through the course of WJC’s administration we slowly saw the soul drain out of her.

She’s smart, she’s clever, and she’s a fantastic politician with one of the best political minds of his generation now standing behind her. But there is no passion there. Nothing to hold on to. No one wants a piece of the HRC pie. Seems like the only people that do are old school NOW activists from the 60’s and 70’s and mega uber-rich establishment democrats.

Her whole campaign is about the best of the best in politics working for her - if you weren’t going to give her money then her people threatened you that you wouldn’t be on the A Team when you finally DID come around. They told you not to give money to anyone else in the mean time. That TIME article correctly quotes campaign operatives who said that HRC staffers told suppoers not to give to other candidates in the field… You just can’t treat people like that. When your staff acts like the sun rises and sets around them and their campaign no one wants to be around that shit. Its dirty karma.

Add to that her quote about how young people don’t care and the war - plus only NOW is she doing outreach to non-traditional places like the grassroots/netroots/yoot community … like we’re a last results??? WTF HRC? Come on…

Plus - the conservative nutjobs seem to be all for HRC being the candidate - which I know scares the bajesus outa me - but then again of all people who know how to fight against them it’d be her.

I’m not saying HRC’s camp needs to turn into some Berkeley retreat hugging festival with kittens and puppies but they sure as hell need to lighten up, wake up, straighten up…

I was going to vote for her until about 3 months ago. She just lost my confidence and my enthusiasm for her.

Personally, she’s never

Submitted by Michael Connery on Sun, 2007-04-29 08:17.

Personally, she’s never appealed to me. But I know a couple people who have worked for her and all have nothing but amazing things to say about the Senator.

I think on my part, it is a reaction to what the Clinton’s have represented for the Democratic Party’s grassroots base - a netroots-borne revulsion if you will against triangulation, the Third Way, and the DLC. I’m also very much turned off by her reactionary views about popular culture.

All that said, there is certainly an appeal among Millennials. Maybe its soft support - name recognition among low-information voters. Maybe not. Until that begins to resolve, though, we need to be covering her campaign and its youth outreach just as much as Edwards and Obama.

And in the event that she does become the nominee, everything we talk about and learn here about youth outreach and campaigning will need to be applied to her operation during the general election. The more we can get Hillary’s youth roots into the conversation here the better off Democrats in general might be come next summer and fall.

Time will tell

Submitted by Josh Koenig on Tue, 2007-05-01 11:40.

Time will tell as to her Millennial support. I lean towards name-recognition, but I also think the fact that she is a she helps. I find the simple notion of a woman prez to be an attractive prospect, We’re the most diverse generation of Americans ever, and part of that translates into a hunger for more diversity at the top. I have to admit an inner feeling of “meh” about Edwards because he’s Another Southern White Male.

That’s probably a kind of prejudice on my part, but this is the kind of thing that can move opinion…

sweet

Submitted by Jake Thorn on Wed, 2007-05-02 01:09.

Mike, Ally, and Josh, thanks for articulating a ton of the things I’ve been thinking about Hillary but couldn’t quite pin down.

[[http://www.losethelabel.org/user/3|-6.00, -4.15]]

she has lots of youth support

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 2007-05-05 20:41.

Hillary has plenty of youth support. Check out http://www.teensforclinton.org along with, as you mentioned, students for hillary and other groups. She just hasnt reached out to those groups.

Teens for Clinton

Submitted by Michael Connery on Sun, 2007-05-06 06:04.

Thanks for the link! Are you involved with Teens for Clinton? If you’ve got more info about them, or other grassroots youth groups for Hillary, please let us know.

When you say that she hasn’t reached out to them, are you speaking from experience?

Teens for Clinton

Submitted by Thomas Senecal (not verified) on Sun, 2007-05-06 09:12.

Not sure who posted that above, but I am President of Teens for Clinton. Our group is probably one of the largest Hillary youth grassroots groups, but others include http://www.kidsforhillary.us/ , http://www.teensforhillary.us/ , http://studentsforhillary.com/ , http://studentsforhillary.com/ , along with numerous college “students for hillary” groups that do not have websites, and many Facebook and Myspace groups. Whoever posted before was correct, the campaign really hasn’t made an effort to reach out to youth groups like Obama has. I have tried to get an official endorsement or even a comment, but nothing happened. The only way she can get youth support like Obama’s is to organize a youth campaign, and acknowledge the groups out there.

Thanks Thomas. I’d love

Submitted by Michael Connery on Sun, 2007-05-06 12:09.

Thanks Thomas.

I’d love to talk to you about this. Send me an email to mike [dot] connery [at] gmail [dot] com.