Youth Patient with Obama

Young people are liking what they see out of Obama to this point, even while those over 30 don't believe the President has matched his policy output to his campaign rhetoric.

Over 70 percent of young voters between 18 and 24 believe that President Barack Obama’s message of change has matched his actions in office, according to those polled in a recent Zogby/Scoop44 survey (6/12-15).

In the expanded under-30 demographic, nearly two-thirds of young voters say that Obama’s policies as President have jibed with with his campaign rhetoric—that fervent trumpet of “change we can believe in.”

When I read this, I remembered another piece of data I saw, reflecting similar results. The Gallup weekly tracking poll, week ending June 14, showed mostly net declines in approval ratings in all age groups except for those in the 18-29 year old cohort. Three out of four 18-29 year olds approve of the job President Obama is doing, six percentage points higher than last week.

The age disparity between those who believe Obama is doing a good job and is on the right course to accomplish what he set out to do and those who don't approve of his job and do not believe he's doing what he promised to do is telling. Perhaps his young supporters -- many of whom followed the campaign from the beginning -- have heard Obama say over and over that change would take time. The latecomers and Washington elites and journalists can't help but rush to judgment (after all, that's the latter group's job!).

The main thing to remember is that we're only five months into a hopefully eight year-long term. And while the president has indeed taken on quite a bit initially, perhaps raising expectations even more, there's quite a bit of time with which to work. Health care and gay rights should get the priority treatment in my opinion -- health care's time is now, before the mid-term craziness emerges, and gay rights should have been taken care of yesterday.

Anyway, it looks like millennials are cutting Obama some slack. Rightfully so.