Republicans

We've spent the last two months bringing you the astounding outreach efforts by Republicans that have been aimed at pealing off the President's strength with young voters.

It began with some guy named Ted Nugent and has continued with upper level Republican operatives like Karl Rove. Mitt Romney even released a web ad last week hitting the President on youth unemployment numbers and imploring Millennials to take a look elsewhere when deciding their vote this election season.

But this week Fox News tells us in an Op-Ed that America's Youth Have Lost Hope and Are Looking For Change. Heh heh... I see what you did there with the hope and change....

The National Review writes about Obama’s Young Ex-Fans.

"Young voters in 2008 were attracted to Obama as a symbol — no one knew exactly what he stood for, but voting for him sure did feel good. Nearly three years later, many of them are increasingly disgusted to learn that he apparently doesn’t stand for much. What’s his position again on gay marriage? On Afghanistan? On Iraq? Health care? The skyrocketing debt? They care little about having a symbolic leader when they can’t find jobs. The Hope and Change he promised have long since become a punch line."

While she's correct to say that young people are feeling a bit disgruntled right now about the President I can promise you it has nothing to do with issues like gay marriage, Afghanistan, Iraq, and health care... and maybe this is the only hope for Democrats to save the youth vote for that key "three elections in a row" gain.

The most successful advocacy community among progressives has been the LGBT community. I don't know if it has to do with campaign donors or there being a lot of LGBT staffers in the White House or if its because if there's one thing the terrorists hate more than Americans its gay Americans - but the White House has actually done OK when it comes to the DOJ saying they won't go after DOMA issues, repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell and being all equal opportunity. While there is a lot more to do - like take care of Dan Choi and all of the other soldiers discharged under DADT and repeal DOMA and other things... when it comes to LGBT issues we are further along than we would have been under John McCain and further along than we will be under any republican president.

As for the others - we're drawing down in Afghanistan, we've almost pulled out entirely in Iraq and the one shining thing the White House has done for young people was ensure the health care reform bill allowed young people to stay on their parents insurance plans longer despite the GOP opposing it and Republican Governors supporting Constitutional Amendments banning the law that gives them this access to health care.

So, I'm not sure those would be the issues the GOP should really speak to young people about ... because young voters will just laugh at you.

Portfolio.com quotes this article and the WSJ piece where Margaret Hoover is pimping her new book about Millennial Voters asking - Who Will Millennial Voters Back in 2012?

The piece cites where the President had success but where that advantage has turned into an uphill climb for connecting with young people in 2012:

Both authors make a compelling point about the potential among the under-30 set for dissatisfaction with Obama. This is a group that voted for the Democrat by a 2-1 margin over John McCain in 2008. The problem, of course, is the economy and the continuing awful employment outlook. Recent reports find that nearly one in five college graduates is out of work and that more than 17 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds who want jobs can't find them.

Ignore the rest of that article because quite honestly it cites research done from republican firms and republican polls and I'm not sure that's the most valid of data. I invite you to check out something that is a little more non-partisan from a non-profit organizations.....

Washington Examiner is back! This time not with an op-ed from Ted but one that says that Under Obama, Millennials move into the GOP column.

"The Democratic party identification edge has been reduced to 47 to 43 percent. That's a 4-point drop for Democrats and a 4-point rise for Republicans since 2008. . . . .But the 2010 numbers yielded a 52 to 45 percent Republican lead in the popular vote for the House."

It then cites a number that is questionable that focuses on young white voters who they say are fleeing the President. According to the Pew numbers that are an accumulation of several different polls taken since the 2008 election:

"In 2008 they were 51 to 40 percent Republican. In the first half of 2011 they were 56 to 35 percent Republican -- more Republican than Southern whites were three years ago."

When some in the youth movement discussed these numbers last week Morley Winograd and Mike Hais co-authors of Millennial Makeover commented that there has indeed been some up and down movement over that time period in Millennial loyalties, and Millennial identification with Democrats is down since 2008. The decline, however, is entirely registered among whites. Among African-Americans and Hispanics there has been no change. Loyalists are standing firm in their support of the President, but part time participants, if they are white, are losing some of their positive feelings toward Democrats and Obama. Like any other coalition, you do need to work it to have it vote for you, and I would add, obviously continue to vote for you, and that's where the President has had problems - particularly prior to the campaign starting again.

President Obama actually admitted this himself last week at the University of Maryland town hall when a young woman asked him where he felt he should have done better over the course of his Presidency. He said that he should have done a better job taking his case to Americans and asking for their support.

Specifically, when it comes to young voters, this was the ONLY demographic that supported the President on the health care reform battle. And the ONLY demographic that continued to support him on HCR. This would have been a great opportunity for the White House to bring in young people to be leaders and advocates to explain why HCR was important. Children, teens, and 20 year olds talking about their health struggles to their parents and grandparents is a great way to squelch the opposition. And politically it looks a heck of a lot better on TV than a bunch of angry old tea baggers. But the youth community wasn't brought in on substantiate policy discussions until the re-elect began.

The last GOP piece about young voters is yet another book review for Margaret Hoover - read more on refuting her claims that young people will join the Tea Party any day now. Hey Margaret... not gonna happen. The GOP might get some young people to buy into the more moderate wing of the party but the Tea Party is never going to see a 60%+ voting spread from young voters the way the President did in 2008. They're way too socially liberal and they actually believe that the government is a tool that can be used to do good.

We've had some site issues with FM as well as most of the FM writers traveling this week so apologies for our lapse in bringing you the essential news.

• The fight to save the 40 year old practice of Election Day Registration in Maine continues with its campaign to garner enough signatures to get The People's Veto on the ballot.
• This week's Campus Progress annual conference brought former President Bill Clinton to speak to attendees. The BigDog warned young people that their right to vote is increasingly being challenged by conservative Governors and state legislatures across the country who are threatened by the enthusiasm of young voters and our increasing ability to move elections. Watch the full speech here at CSPAN
• Oddly enough these same republicans are trying to recruit more young people to opposing the President and join their oh so welcoming and positive message against the government.
• Funding cuts might be coming to vocational training for young people according to a piece that follows a young man who was an at-risk high school student but his counselor found he excelled at hands on skills based classes. He now talks about getting his bachelors in engineering and starting his own business.
  

  "Now, federal funding to provide such vocational and technical education is at risk. President Obama has instead made it a priority to raise overall academic standards and college graduation rates, and aims to shrink the small amount of federal spending for vocational training in public high schools and community colleges. That aid comes primarily in the form of Perkins grants to states.

  The administration has proposed a 20-percent reduction in its fiscal 2012 budget for career and technical education, to a little more than $1 billion, even as it seeks to increase overall education funding by 11 percent."

  We all have to make sacrifices in these tough economic times. I mean unless of course you're the top 2% of wage earners in the US. You don't have to make sacrifices - we'll give you a tax cut.

• More depressing higher ed news - the likely incoming president of Cal State San Diego is getting a $100k salary bump from the previous university president, bringing his take home dollar a whopping $400,000 a year. In a totally unrelated story - CSU is slated for one of the steepest tuition increasesin the country, with a 12% hike - the 10th increase in a decade.
• Don't have a job? Well falling back in a US Military job may no longer be an option according to this CNN report. "The Army and Marine Corps are getting smaller, and now there's a nearly year-long waiting list just to get into boot camp, no matter which branch you want to join."
• Having a hard time with the student loans? Here are five tips to getting a handle on your student debt. Some good pointers.
• Last week was the President's Twitter Townhall where he was asked about giving incentives to companies hiring honorably discharged veterans. He said it was certainly something they were talking about in the West Wing in large part because the level of unemployment is higher among young veterans than non-veterans.
  

  "It reported that in May 2011, veterans from the post-9/11 period had an unemployment rate of 12.1 percent. By comparison, non-veterans that month had an 8.5 percent unemployment rate."



• In the Dalai Lama's latest trip to the US he spoke and answered questions from Buddhists and young Americans who sat on the Capitol lawn in Washington DC this weekend. In his address he said two notable things that encouraged the young crowd:

  1. "Oh yes, things are always changing," the Dalai Lama said to an eruption of cheers from a crowd ranging from fellow Buddhist monks to young Americans lying on the grass on a hot summer morning.

     "Certainly, I think the voice of freedom, democracy, rule of law, more and more voice(s are) now coming," the Dalai Lama said in English, noting that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao himself has called for political reforms in recent years.

     "So things will certainly change," he said. "Not only (in the) Chinese case, but the whole world, things are changing."

  2. The Dalai Lama did not speak about the Karmapa but, responding to a question from a 14-year-old, urged young people to be "warm-hearted" and to turn the page on the bloodshed of the 20th century.

     "My century is gone. The people who brought the 20th century are now ready to say goodbye," the Dalai Lama said.

     "Young people -- you are the people who really make the new shape of this century," he said. "You should have vision and determination and willpower."

• In the millennial marketing world a story about the gourmet nature of young people who have high standards for food. If you read my post about the recent survey on millennial marketing you know that restaurants are where young people love to spend their time and their money.
• Aviva - the sixth largest insurance group might be trying to woo young people with its do-gooder marketing tool on Facebook by asking users to donate their status to one of four youth-focused charities that is in the running for the company's $100,000 grant. Interesting - their facebook looks like a cause based FB ... with little mention of anything insurance related.
• In the past few weeks since Google launched its new social network Google+ the online world has spent a lot of time comparing it to Facebook and Twitter and talking about its potential for successes and challenges. Notably the marketing world has discerned that success depends largely on Google+'s ability to capture the enthusiasm of younger generations.
• As if Google+ isn't enough The Google is also working to lure great thinkers of our generation with its Young Minds Contest
• More in social media news: I'm sure you've heard it before - that young people share way too much information on social networks. That these "over shares" can hurt you from getting jobs, and Sen. Jay Rockafeller event went so far as to say young people have no "social values." Funny.... As it turns out, older Americans are just as bad as young people when it comes to sharing their information on Facebook. What do ya know...



• The food and farm report details info about young dairy farmers. I actually have a friend who's been talking about doing a dairy farm. And given the report above about the youth attraction to more gourmet foods if you make fancy cheeses then... hey you might have something! Perhaps, this is the reason that there is said to be "promise" for rural Wisconsin youth.
• And the final story for the day is consistent with my appreciation for graffiti art. An artist in New Zeland has teamed up with local police to paint walls encouraging young people to consider joining the police force. Great public marketing tool - and sick art.

Dalai Lama photo curtsey of the AFP/Ghetty credit to Mark Wilson

Republican researchers RK Research have launched a project around discovering why young people tend to vote more for Democrats than Republicans. In a recently released report (PDF) about their upcoming research project RK says it will be doing the survey over the course of several months and will sample 4,400 college students.

I think among the youth movement we have this conversation frequently but this research project is only looking at college students not a broad spectrum of young voters.  The RK paper says that college students only make up 18% of the electorate and as I recall less than 50% of young voters even went to college?  This survey will still be ignoring a large portion of the youth community with its findings.

"Before presenting the data, this report briefly offers three premises: First, college voters now favor the Democratic Party by a considerable margin. Second, college voters have not always been solidly Democratic. And third, college students are electorally important" (page 3)

I have a few comments on these assumptions.

First, I dispute the assumption that "college voters now favor the Democratic Party by a considerable margin."  I think young voters are less likely to support one particular party, and more likely to support a specific candidate; specifically one that is good on their issues and reaches out to ask for their vote.  Those tend to be more left leaning or center left leaning policies and candidates.

Second, the survey says youth have not always been Democratic Party voters. On page 4 it goes on to say:

"In the past ten presidential elections, the Republican Party has won the youth vote three times (1972, 1984, 1988) and has been very close in three instances (1976, 1980, and 2000). Only in 1992, 1996, 2004, and 2008 did the Republican Party lose the youth vote by substantial margins. These loses, however, represent four of the past five presidential elections"

I would never dispute the data saying that Generation X youth were more likely to be GOP or GOP leaning particularly with Reagan support.  The reason they're losing support is that Gen X is almost the anthesis of Gen Y and they're a lot smaller in number. It isn't that one party or another is losing or winning young voters - its that those same voters are growing up and becoming a different demographic. Yesterday's 18-29 year olds are not today's - by a long shot. Similarly, the policies supported by yesterday's young voters are not the policies supported by today's young voters.

Third, I agree that the GOP should try to reach out to youth - indeed BOTH parties should reach out to youth.  The argument that "the age of polical malleability, after which - political science literature shows - voting habits are likely to ermine the same" (page 8) is not merely a footnote in a polisci text book, but should be a stat to live by. The Millennial Generation is larger than the Baby Boomers by 5 million people and significantly larger than Generation X. The first party that gets them and keeps them... will have them for a long time.  When you talk about party building this is critical for long term growth.

Fellow FM reporter Karlo knows a little something about stats and data. He said just glacing at the methodology that it looked flawed. I concur. There will be 120 students surveyed at a broad spectrum of schools by grabbing them in the student unions.

"Participants are selected randomly by asking all passerby in the student center or student union if they are interested in taking a survey in exchange for a candy bar."

This is even further isolation because you're not taking into account students who are non-traditional and don't set foot on campuses. Similarly, students who walk through the student centers in general - students who STOP and talk to someone who grabs him/her is a pretty special selection of people too.

Finally, if the GOP wants to talk about how they can get young people with their policies it isn't rocket science. They have to be more centrist and stop scaring people with the "tea bagger" policies. If they want to approach young people from the right, I suggest talking to Ron Paul. Be more libertarian. Be more individual rights focused - support legalization of pot, be more pro-choice, pro-gay marriage ... not simply because you "support the lifestyle" but because the government has no business being in the bedroom business.

This is just anecdotal evidence I know from years of working in the youth movement and in politics. But RK Research already knows this information. Their website highlights that the hard lined GOP opposition to gay marriage proposes a long term problem for the Republicans. This comes on the heals of the Focus on the Family release saying that they believe they've lost the "gay marriage" battle.

Their second point is that young voters don't have a very high opinion of Sarah Palin - one of the leaders of the more conservative teabagger wing of the GOP. They were more apt to support candidates like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Arnold Schwarzenegger by almost double their support for Sarah Palin. These are all very centrist moderate candidates two of which come from more left leaning states.

How can the GOP win the youth vote? My advice? Go left and spend a whole lot of money reaching out to young voters.

This week The Hill published a piece by Juan Williams claiming that the GOP can win over the youth vote for the 2012 election.

Here's the funny part: the whole piece is about how Democrats have passed laws that specifically help young people, how the GOP and the Tea Party specifically is more attuned to the Baby Boomer generation and as such is supported more by Boomers.

"In the first two months of the new Congress the budget debate that has dominated the agenda is skewed to the older crowd. The only mention of young people comes when politicians warn against burdening the young with huge budget deficits. . .

"GOP freshmen in the House, fueled by support from the seniors who dominate the Tea Party, have been busy cutting discretionary spending on Head Start, grants for higher education and job training programs."

Williams goes on to say that even on the issue of jobs and the economy the two parties have a generational divide with Republicans who typically seek to cut taxes because older folks are more concerned with "immediate cost of living" issues. Democrats by contrast are more concerned with creating jobs; more specifically Williams says a "tight job market’s long-term impact on their ability to buy a home or save for retirement."

The same day that Williams piece hit The Hill, the Washington Post released a piece about the White House's new attempt to re-engage young people just in time for election season. The one demographic that has consistently supported the President and his agenda, even without outreach on health care or the environment or education reform, has been the Millennial Generation.

It's like Williams is doing the Democrats' jobs for them in proving that the GOP isn't right for youth. But where he does win some points is in saying that the GOP is positioned to win the youth vote because Republican voter registration among 18-29 year olds has increased from 30% to a whopping 40% and Dem registration has drooped from 62% to 54%. If you remember, Obama won the youth vote with nearly 70%. Meaning that a good portion of those 30% agreed with Williams that Democrats have more of a grasp on issues that matter to young voters.

Another point Williams makes that we've made on here several times is regarding the building a stronger bench of young progressive candidates.

"There are 32 members of the House who are 40 or under. Of those, 22 are Republicans and 10 are Democrats."

I've personally argued that Democrats neglect the youth vote, even take it for granted, expecting us to show up without doing the proper outreach or even any at all.

Fellow FM writer Kevin Bondelli pointed out a key point in Mike Connery's book Youth to Power

"the conservatives have a much stronger leadership development infrastructure and support their young talent. Unfortunately on the Democratic/Progressive side the gains we have made in this area are minimal. While the Democratic Party's policies and ideology is much closer to those of young Americans, the Party still predominately views youth as potential voters (which sadly is only a new development) and not as current candidates for leadership positions."

I would go further and say that even the voter registration contrasts between the two parties during 2010 were stark. It's been typical that, for one reason or another, progressive organizations and parties do much much more during presidential elections than midterms.

One thing is for certain in 2012: the Obama campaign will spare no expense in doing outreach before Election Day, and at the same time non-partisan groups will do huge voter registration drives while both parties work to register and re-register their own people. As much as the GOP would like to believe they're gaining ground with the most diverse generation in history, it's hard to beat the President's success in 2008 when your bench of potential Presidential candidates continues to be the same old white faces that we see election after election.

Oops... So yesterday I talked about the outreach Karl Rove is doing or says the GOP should do to young voters. Turns out that the GOP program that works to get young donors in it is filled with "young guns" in their 50's...

Maybe age is just a state of mind - or an arbitrary number. If you feel young, if you feel there are songs to be sung... or even better if you're a previous member of the GOP's Young Egles program and you like to go to bondage strip clubs then the Young Guns is for you - just bring your checkbook...

Via the Daily Beast:

In fact, the current crop of the 22 Young Guns looks very much like the old generation of conservative leaders. These upstarts together average an age of 49.6 years old — two months shy of the average age of new members who joined Congress in 2008. And those current reps are no spring chickens themselves. According to one analysis, the 111th Congress is the oldest, on average, of any since 1907.

More than half of the Young Guns, having celebrated the big 5-0, are already eligible for an AARP membership. Only two of the group’s designated candidates– Martha Roby, who is running for Alabama’s 2nd District, and district attorney-cum-reality-television star Sean Duffy, who is running for the open seat in Wisconsin’s 7th District — are under the age of 40.

Brandon Griefe at U.S. News and World Report wrote a piece yesterday arguing that the Republicans have an opportunity to make amends with young, Millennial voters given the "genuine fear" created by Democratic spending.

With such a large and active base of young supporters it would appear Democrats have their Republican opponents nearing checkmate. But a closer look at the chessboard reveals neither party is in good strategic position to topple the other’s king.

The Republicans’ problem has been their inability to connect with youth and minorities. Only recently have they begun to deemphasize the socially conservative aspects of their platform that have polarized voters since the culture wars of the 1960s. A recent Pew Research poll found that young adults are “clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life and…are much less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition.” These and other social issues are not major concerns of young adults, a fact that is slowly being realized as Republicans seek to broaden their voting base.

But Democrats’ recent legislative priorities show they’ve also done a poor job at setting the board up for success. Enormous debt and deficit spending to fund a variety of new programs has created a dire fiscal future that is creating genuine fear among young adults. Then-Sen. Barack Obama said it best in 2006:

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

The rhetoric of 2006 has not translated into reality come 2010. The failure of leadership now continues under his watch with trillions in new debt obligations. Young adults will not be able to ignore the red ink that fills the nation’s ledger forever. Unless Democrats act quickly to reverse the growth of the government’s deficit they will poison the well of Millennial support that carried them to historic victories in 2008.

Griefe's analysis is faulty and disingenuous for three reasons.

1.) I don't believe I saw anything from Griefe or anyone else about deficit spending when George W. Bush was in the White House. When Bush entered the Oval Office, Bill Clinton handed his administration a surplus. When he left, we were trillions of dollars in debt. Two major tax cuts and two wars did quite a bit of damage:

Obama's stimulus package accounted for only .07/$1.00 of the national debt when he signed it into law. Nearly 90 percent of the debt was created under George W. Bush.

To clean up the mess Bush left, Obama has to spend more.

2.) The message about the national debt does not carry any water with Millennials, especially since they are encountering the worst youth unemployment rate since World War II. Our friend Karlo tackled this conservative talking point last year, aptly comparing someone climbing a hill to one's life-long relationship with government.

Imagine for a moment that you are trying to traverse a hill. The hill represents how much taxes you expect to pay over your lifetime. One end of the hill is the start (the beginning of your life), the top of the hill is middle-age, and the other end of the hill is, well, six-feet-under. At both ends of the hill, you pay relatively little in taxes, and the top of the hill is when you pay the most in taxes. This is what tax-paying looks like throughout the course of one's life. For some generations, traversing this hill was made easier (but not faster), because the government helped invest in the well-being of the tax-payer very early on in life.

This is not the case with Millennials. The rising cost (PDF) of college and beyond has not resulted in a proportionate increase in services or resources. When you place this fact of rising costs into the context of rising college attendance, the effect is magnified. The share of young people that have attended college has increased 21 percentage points from the 1970s to the present (PDF, pg. 5). What's more is the fact young people with post-graduate degrees on are on the rise, too. What all this amounts to is a more difficult (but not slower) journey over the hill. It's almost as if Millennials have to carry a heavy backpack (read: student debt) and still keep pace with everyone else. Now add to that the fact that the end of the hill for Millennials is much farther away than it is for previous generations due to longer life expectancy.

In addition to this, Millennials themselves tell National Journal that they think Obama's spending has been a good thing.

A plurality of Millennials say they believe that the president's agenda will increase rather than diminish opportunities for their generation (41 percent to 27 percent). More respondents say that his policies averted an even worse economic crisis (44 percent) than believe that Obama ran up the national debt without doing much good (36 percent). By 46 percent to 31 percent, they also say that the comprehensive health care reform bill Obama recently signed into law is a good thing for the country. Just one-fourth believe that the country is worse off because of the president's policies; the rest feel that his efforts have significantly improved conditions (16 percent) or are beginning to move the nation in the right direction, even if they haven't yet produced major gains (43 percent).

Given the toxic economy the Bush policies gave Millennials as they have come of age, making the figurative hill even steeper, the government must invest in the youngest generation to ensure they have a chance of getting over the top, and thankfully, it is.

3.) Griefe comically cites a list of GOPers including Rand Paul and Bob McDonnell as smartly handling social issues in order to keep the focus on the fiscal matters at hand.

This is pretty simple.

Rand Paul doesn't think the 1964 Civil Rights Act should have passed.

Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia issues a proclamation for Confederate History Month in the commonwealth, failing to mention trafficking of human beings and the consequential brutal decades of Jim Crow.

I'm not sure whether Griefe had a brain lapse here or what. Griefe is right that if the GOP can't get social issues right, they won't have any shot at Millennials period. Justin Miller at The Atlantic notes this, describing Millennials as the generation least tolerant of racism. The list of Republicans Griefe provides, though, is laughable. Their clumsy navigation of social issues has provided Democrats with several opportunities to beat back any Republican momentum.

The generational theft argument sounds good, but it doesn't play with young people. It plays even less with Millennials when it's shrouded in social issues.

Nice effort. Back to the drawing board.

As Democrats approach the end of their first year of the 21st century in control of both Congress and the White House, we are reminded of a hard truth: progressive change is much more difficult than conservative retrenchment.

Throughout history change has always faced an uphill battle against the seductive forces of fear, hatred, dogma, and tradition. In fact, major progressive change is so difficult and occurs so infrequently that such victories are historical outliers. As Mike Lux points out, only four or five decades in the history of the United States have proved to be fertile ground for such change.

Some believed that the 21st century would be different, that the proliferation of technology and the internet would be a panacea. However, this view ignored those aspects of this century that make change more difficult. While it is true that the internet has enabled more public participation and government transparency and allowed people to compete with the media power of corporate television and radio, it also allowed people to self-select their news, information, and facts. No longer can a Walter Cronkite turn the tide of American public opinion against a war with a single statement. The internet is a value-neutral platform and it spreads conservative messages just as effectively as progressive ones. Life expectancy is dramatically longer than in the past, slowing generational change and keeping old prejudices and fears alive (this is where conservatives will convince themselves that I am arguing for death panels as a progressive conspiracy). Change today will be just as difficult as it has been in the past.

Also extinguished a year in is the naïve belief in bipartisanship, that we can convince Republicans to join with Democrats to do the right thing for the American people. Bipartisanship only exists when there is a Republican in the White House, and such bipartisanship has had devastating consequences (see Iraq War, Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy, deregulation).

Republicans view government as a zero-sum game. Health care is not a service for the American people but a battle to be fought for political gain. Helping the uninsured and those who have had the American dream shattered by health care costs is nothing compared to the potential to recreate Waterloo. The conservative platform is dogma, with their evangelists castigating those who do not show proper devotion to the faith. To them, legislation is but a chessboard where black and white move their pieces through amendments and procedures to ultimately topple the opponent's king.

Change takes time. The Presidency, control of the House, and a 20 member majority in the Senate is not a sufficient condition. Democrats need candidates that are not just electable but also effective, as well as the courage to believe that standing firm for our ideas can actually be a winning strategy. We need to enlarge the electorate by putting serious effort into engaging Millennials and minorities. Progressive victories have proved us to be on the right side of history--ending slavery, universal suffrage, the New Deal, and Medicare--and we need representatives that will make the right decision now and not worry about whether history will move fast enough to prove them right before the next election.

Change requires sacrifice and effort, new strategies, more profiles in courage, and a dream that will never die.

Over at New Majority, a youth conservative site similar to Future Majority, Rachel Hoff argues that there is an opportunity present for the GOP to make inroads with young voters. All they have to do is stay on message and talk about what young voters want to discuss: jobs and the economy.

And yet, President Obama still gets his strongest support from young Americans, with 60 percent of people under 30 still approving of the job he is doing. But the recent economic and public opinion trends provide a huge opportunity for Republicans to make up some ground with the youngest generation of voters. The GOP’s challenge, however, is to stay on message as they sweet talk young Americans.

[...]

A survey by the Young Republican National Federation at the beginning of this year showed that 23 percent of Young Republicans wanted their party to focus on job creation and the economy. Only 6 percent of these young party activists thought the GOP should focus on social issues. (And social conservatives were well represented in the survey.) For young voters of all social stripes, it seems it is a matter of priorities.

Recession or no recession, young Americans care most about jobs. And if Republicans take advantage of this opportunity to talk competently and confidently about the economy, the party has a chance to break young America’s love affair with Obama and win these voters back to the GOP.

It's great that young conservatives have so much optimism. But here are a couple realities that can't simply be pushed aside:

1.) Young people don't like the GOP. In the most recent Daily Kos/Research 2000 tracking poll, only six percent of 18-29 year olds rate the GOP favorably, while 79 percent favor President Obama. I'm not sure where Hoff's 60 percent figure originates, but youth clearly side and trust Obama on these issues.

2a.) Social issue junkies run the GOP, and they can't kick the habit. Yes, it might be exciting for Republicans to think they can force the breakup between Obama and young voters, but those who might share Hoff's correct view that youth want to talk about the economy are outnumbered by those who celebrate Glenn Beck, Michael Steele, and crazy teabagging parties. God, guns, and gays still consume too much of the GOP's attention for any kind of substantive discussion of quality of life issues to take root. As long as this is the case, young voters aren't seeing red.

2b.) As long as the GOP is talking social issues, youth aren't going to agree with them. The most diverse generation in American history simply does not agree with the GOP's backward-looking views on most social issues.

OUCH! This morning's new swanked up GOP website launched. But Ben Smith at Politico notes the the "Future Leaders" page has an unfortunate omission.

Leadership is key, not that the Democratic Party is much better... a little better... but not by much. Their saving grace is the many non-partisan progressive groups and indeed the Young Democrats doing everything they can to develop youth leadership. Hopefully, some day, that will translate into the DNC reaching out to these youth to take leading positions in legislative offices and campaigns, and eventually run for office.

(Note - I changed the title of this post for accuracy.)

I'm late in getting to this, but on Monday, conservative (and Millennial) New York Times columnist Ross Douthat published an interesting article noting that the conservatives have made strange bedfellows in the health care debate, siding with seniors in favor of continuing government subsidized health care in the form of Medicare:

Conservatives have marshaled various briefs against the Democratic health care proposals. They’ve argued that the plans will be too expensive, that they’ll cramp innovation and raise premiums for the already-insured, that they’ll encourage employers to drop coverage and discourage them from hiring.

These arguments have been effective, up to a point. But they aren’t nearly as effective as warning senior citizens that Barack Obama wants to take away their health care.

That’s why Republicans find themselves tiptoeing into an unfamiliar role — as champions of old-age entitlements. The Democrats are “sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare,” Mitch McConnell declared. They want to “cannibalize” the program to pay for reform, John Cornyn complained. It’s a “raid,” Sam Brownback warned, that could result in the elderly losing “necessary care.”

Douthat notes, rightly I think, that while this maybe a politically savvy move in the short term, it not only flies in the face of bedrock conservative principles of smaller government and greater fiscal conservatism. As the population continues to age, it will make any conservative attempts to reform Medicare nearly impossible.

What Douthat misses, though, is that while older voters may be scared of "the government touching their Medicare," young people are the most supportive of reforming the health care system. Millennials are pragmatists. They don't care about ideology - they just want an efficient government that works for people. Right now, Republicans are not only disingenuously courting seniors (Mediscaring, as Douthat says), they are openly obstructing any good faith attempt at reform. Whether or not reform passes, that's not going to play well with youth. The Republican strategy for winning the short term political argument is another nail in the coffin or their long-term health as a viable national party.