2012 election

I've been reading several stories about Ron Paul following the the successes he's had in the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary with young voters. Many of these stories speculate that this somehow speaks to the "message" of the Paul campaign or that Paul's issues are the issues of young voters this election. While some of these assumptions are partly valid, they're leaving out a majority of the information about young voters and the source of their support in the Ron Paul Revolution.

To begin, Paul has consistently received support from young people. But this isn't the first election that we're seeing him as a candidate. Other than former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Paul is the only candidate in the race who has the benefit of having done this just 4 years ago. And like many candidates, his campaign didn't end after McCain was declared the nominee in 2008. Instead, the "revolution" continued it's efforts in PAC form and has continued to message and mobilize it's supporters around the issues Paul pushes. Most pundits are underestimating this impact. Many campaign experts have commented over the last year that Obama's lack of "campaigning" after the election was over was the reason his policies weren't "sold" to American voters. Hell he even said it at a speech at the University of Maryland. Many of the GOP candidates and campaigns that turned into PACs or Super PACs and never stopped pushing their issues and their brand to their supporters and Ron Paul is one of them.

If you look at the raw numbers of Iowa and New Hampshire for Paul you get a different picture of 2008 vs. 2012. In 2008 there was a youth turnout of 13% over 65,000 young people vs. 2012 when it was 4% over 18,000 young voters (via CIRCLE). In 2008 of the 65,230 young voters 52,580 of the caucused for Democratic candidates. Of those youth who voted in 2008 in the GOP caucus, they supported Huckabee - so the electorate has a track record of supporting a more conservative candidate. In the final ballot in 2008 Paul got 11,841. I wish I had a demographic break down for first ballots by candidate... but I don't.....

For New Hampshire over 72,000 young voters turned out for the primaries in 2008 with nearly 44,000 of those going for Democratic candidates. Ron Paul received 18,308 votes out of 234,851 in New Hampshire in 2008 for 7.8% of the GOP vote share. In 2012 Paul got 56,872 out of 248,293 voters a vote share of 23% - that's actually about 25,000 less than what Mitt Romney got in 2008 as a second place finisher to John McCain in 2008.... Like in Iowa, New Hampshire saw a pretty big drop in youth turnout too. Four years ago young voters participated to the tune of over 84,000 voters. This year... more like just under 30,000.

I wish I had demographic break downs by candidate for 2008 but CIRCLE doesn't have that data and CNN's super helpful data visualizations they've had FOR YEARS are now... gone...

For both 2008 and 2012 Paul excelled when it comes to mobilization, at least as it pertains to young voters. Many candidates dismiss young voters as fickle with less likelihood of turning out than seniors, so they don't do the work. Obama won Iowa in 2008 because he had to win with "unlikely" voters, he had to bring new voters into the equation which meant young people, which is why the Iowa Caucus youth vote tripled. Of the GOP campaigns I've watched over the years, Paul is the only one who seems to mobilize his supporters regardless of age. Perhaps, this is because, like Obama, Paul must garner his support from "unlikely" voters because he knows the establishment voters won't support him. While I'm sure message and issues and the bump coming out of Iowa factor into this equation, underestimating the power of GOTV, especially in a primary or caucus is a mistake.

Like GOTV, Paul speaks TO young voters. His campaign embraces their enthusiasm and highlights it, online especially, and if you attended the 2008 GOP "Un-Convention" you saw a whole heck of a lot of young faces. More traditional establishment campaigns don't do this. It makes a difference in the tone and appearance of a campaign when young voters look around and see more people like them instead of a bunch of old white dudes.

Not being treated as a real candidate matters too. Typically in a campaign you have contrasting negative ads that hit the opposition. Many view Romney as the frontrunner, so they attack him in millions of dollars in advertising. The same is true for Perry and Gingrich. Ron Paul is never really considered a threat - some don't even view him as a viable candidate. He's like the crazy old uncle of the GOP. He'll never win. So no one spends millions of dollars attacking him. Thus... his negatives aren't that high.

Finally, yes, message and issues do matter, but it's hardly the only factor even the driving factor. There's an authenticity with Paul that you don't see with Romney. Paul knows he's not going to win - and I'm not sure he cares if he does or not. He seems to be in the race to raise ideas and create a dialogue about those issues. Some of those ideas (crazy or not) made their way to legislation in the last 4 years and his campaign can count the enthusiasm and support of his voters for continuing to hammer home those issues with their elected officials.

Second about message, young people tend to be independent in their ideology, specifically when it comes to their thoughts about government intrusion in things like marriage and drug policy. I think if many of these young voters knew that Paul wasn't all that libertarian when it comes to equality, marriage, and women's rights their opinion might evolve, but no one considers Paul a threat... so these issues are never brought up, discussed, and he's never questioned or held accountable.

Finally about message, many of the anti-war, pro-drug, anti-Wall Street messages are the ones that indeed hit home with young people. It's the same reason you're seeing other anti-Wall Street candidates do well right now (see Elizabeth Warren... Suzanne Bonamici... etc). In a 30 second pitch these ideas are ones that do speak to young voters and contrast considerably with candidates who want to do ads on "family" and "faith" and whatever other pandering to the GOP electorate they want. This is where that authenticity comes back in. Fold in the lack of accountability, a big GOTV list, and you've got a recipe for success.

There are a lot of factors that are being ignored when it comes to Ron Paul and the youth vote. Never underestimate the power of a GOTV campaign or a non-stop issues campaign that's gone on for the last 4+ years. These are the things that can make a candidate successful, especially in low turnout years when the rest of the field is a joke.

News for the Millennial Generation is what HyperVocal does best. They are launching a new political comedy show with James Kotecki they're broadcasting on UStream.

Via HyperVocal:

"Tune in as Kotecki takes all your questions and discusses the state of the 2012 silly season, having just returned from the New Hampshire primary. Where do we go from here? What's not being covered properly, or at all, by mainstream news organizations? What's he going to cook for dinner? It's Kitchen Table Politics with James Kotecki, and it's coming to your computer as you wolf down your lunch."

Watch here:

The headline of a December 15 press release from the Harvard Institute of Politics trumpeted, "More Millennials Predict Obama Will Lose Bid for Re-election Than Win, Harvard Poll Finds." The article elaborated that among all the 18-29-year-olds, opinion on this question is actually quite evenly divided into almost equal thirds: 36% believe that the president will lose in 2012; 30% think he will win; and 32% are not sure. Not surprisingly, conservative media and politicians jumped on the story with particular vigor and glee.

The headline was certainly provocative, but it hardly told the complete story about the Harvard poll's results, to say nothing of Millennial political attitudes and preferences, entering 2012. The problem is that asking Millennials which candidate they expect to win an election may measure their awareness of the conventional wisdom that says President Obama is in deep trouble and that next year's election is the Republicans to lose, but it says very little about how Millennials are actually going to vote in 2012. When Harvard asked that question directly, things look different. Obama leads among Millennials by double digits against all likely Republican opponents: 11 points versus Mitt Romney and 16 points versus both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry.

The current state of Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003) political opinions and behavior is, in fact, reflected far more completely and precisely by a November Pew Research survey:

"In the last four national elections generational differences have mattered more than they have in decades. According to exit polls, younger people have voted substantially more Democratic than other age groups since 2004, while older voters have cast more ballots for Republican candidates in each election since 2006. The latest national polls suggest this pattern may well continue in 2012... One of the largest factors driving the current generation gap is the arrival of diverse and Democratic-oriented Millennials... This group holds liberal attitudes on most social and governmental issues."

In the Pew research, Millennials prefer Barack Obama over Mitt Romney (61% vs. 37%) by about the same 2:1 margin that they voted for him against John McCain in 2008 (66% vs. 32%). Even white Millennials, a cohort that has received considerable attention from commentators in recent months for their modest drift toward the GOP, are evenly divided in the 2012 voting preferences (49% each for Obama and Romney). The president's margin among Millennials is even greater against other potential Republican nominees than it is against Romney.

Moreover, Millennials tended toward the Democrats before Barack Obama achieved national prominence. Millennials identify as Democrats over Republicans by 50% to 35%. Majorities of Millennials also hold favorable attitudes toward the Democratic Party (51%) and unfavorable attitudes toward the GOP (53%). In the policy arena, by 56% to 35%, Millennials prefer a bigger government that provides more services to a smaller government that provides fewer services. This broad belief in governmental approaches in dealing with economic and societal issues is reflected in the almost 2:1 preference of Millennials for the expansion rather than the repeal of the 2010 health care reform legislation (44% to 27%) and for increased spending to help economic recovery rather than reducing the budget deficit (55% to 41%).

Millennials also hold opinions on a range of social issues that incline the generation toward the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. A majority of Millennials (59%) support the legalization of gay marriage, while only 28% of them agree that America has gone too far in pushing for equal rights. Probably because it is the most diverse in U.S. history (about 40% are nonwhite and one in five have an immigrant parent) virtually all Millennials (81%) favor providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Of course, the Millennial Generation's continued clear support for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party is not a sure thing. Both the president and his party must convince Millennials that they can effectively use the government to fix the problems confronting their generation and the nation. But electoral politics is a two-way street. To win Millennial support, the Republican Party has to persuade Millennials that it and its potential presidential nominees are a viable alternative. So far, there is little in the Pew research (or any other poll) to suggest that they have done much to accomplish that undertaking. If anything, the GOP's push to the right on both economic and social issues makes that increasingly unlikely.

In the end, the Democrats' biggest Millennial concern is not likely to be the generation's partisanship or opinions on issues, but its political engagement. The Pew survey indicates that only 69% of Millennials claim to care a good deal about who wins the presidency in 2012. This compares with over 80% among older generations. At the same time, a recent Gallup Poll indicates that the contentious struggle for the Republican presidential nomination and the performance of the party's leadership in Congress may have taken a toll on the Republican Party and sharply narrowed the "enthusiasm gap" between the Democrats and GOP.

As a result, the participation of Millennials is perhaps even more crucial in 2012 than it was four years earlier. In 2008, the generation comprised about 17% of the electorate and accounted for about 80% of Barack Obama's national popular vote majority. In 2012, as increasing numbers of Millennials reach voting age, they have the potential to comprise about a quarter of the electorate. If Millennials vote in numbers proportionate to their potential, their continued support of the president, as indicated by Pew, will likely allow him to overcome any losses he suffers among older voters. If large numbers of Millennials do not vote or are prevented from doing so by efforts in states across the country to limit their turnout, the president's reelection chances will be sharply reduced.

The answers to those questions, not any current judgments on which candidate is likely to win, will very likely determine whether Barack Obama or his eventual Republican opponent is inaugurated as president on January 20, 2013.

Crossposted with permission from Mike and Morley from HuffPo

Jon Huntsman, in campaigning for the Republican nomination for the presidency, is encountering a rough reality five months removed from the New Hampshire primary: voters don't know who he is. And if general voters don't know who he is, I'm guessing young voters aren't well aware of the former governor-turned presidential candidate either.

While Huntsman has some work to do with the general electorate, And maybe some his daughters are attempting to do their part in reaching out to young voters through Twitter.

On July 28, Huntsman's three oldest daughters started their own Twitter account. At the outset, the Twitter account was created based on the daughters' desire to share where they are and what they are doing with friends. But then they thought about other uses.

Abby Huntsman, 25, said she and her sisters came up with the idea on their own as a way to keep friends informed.

'All our friends are like, "Where are you? You’re always in different places and doing interesting things!"

'And we thought, "This is a great way to reach out to, not only our friends, but to the youth and to anybody interested in following the campaign",' she said.

[...]

Abby Huntsman said she’s not sure what role the @Jon2012girls account will play in the upcoming election, but she believes she and her sisters have a basic duty to their dad.

'I think our involvement is pretty simple. It’s just getting out there, getting people excited and getting them to know a little bit about my dad,' she said.

I'm not one to knock efforts to appeal to young voters or engage in social media, so kudos to the Huntsmans.

However, I think we need to remember that technology in 2008 campaigns and technology in 2012 campaigns are entirely different phenomena. So while simply "getting a Twitter or Facebook" might have been able to pass as some kind of appeal to youth in 2008 (even that is highly doubtful), doing that alone definitely won't work in 2012.

If the Huntsman daughters legitimately want to appeal to young voters, maybe they need to tell their dad to campaign and advocate for true pro-growth policies, strategies that create jobs and increase government revenues. That's what we want and need. That he definitely wouldn't get out of the GOP primary after spreading this message shows you just how far the Republican Party is from young voters' priorities.

Politico published an op-ed piece this morning examining both parties' use of younger messengers on television to attract the 35-60 crowd. Martin Frost, a former Democratic representative from Texas and the author, attempts to rationalize this.

Both parties know that the key electorate in the 2012 is voters between the ages of 35 and 60. Younger voters are likely to stay with President Barack Obama, but older voters are a battleground to be fought over on traditional issues like Social Security and Medicare.

It is these voters between 35 and 60, increasingly identifying as independents, who are expected to be the true battleground in both Obama’s re-election and the Democrats’ effort to re-take control of the House.

Emphasis is mine.

It's pretty simple: if the Democrats and the Obama campaign make similar assumptions about young voters and the campaign takes the youth vote for granted, the 35-60 year old vote won't matter.

The recent release of survey data by the Pew Research Center indicating that the party identification of Millennials had narrowed from 60% Democratic vs. 32% Republican in 2008 to 52% Democratic vs. 39% Republican in 2011 produced a flurry of articles by political observers.

USA Today maintained that "in 2012, youth voters may prove elusive for Obama." Michael Barone posting in the conservative Washington Examiner under a misleading headline that "Under Obama, Millennials move into the GOP column," could barely contain his excitement at the news that a majority of white Millennials identify as Republicans (52% vs. 41% Democratic). A careful examination of the Pew data indicates that even in 2008 a larger percentage of white Millennials identified outright as Republicans than Democrats. Most of the movement that has occurred since then was among those who leaned to the Democratic Party and had weaker ties to it to begin with.

Nevertheless, given the importance of the Millennial Generation to President Obama's victories, beginning with the Iowa caucuses all the way through the general election, the data certainly highlighted a source of potential danger to his re-election and to Democratic hopes for regaining their position as the majority party in American politics. Such speculation however ignores some other hard facts about Millennials and why they are likely to continue to be a key part of the Democratic coalition.

Millennials are the most ethnically and religiously diverse generation in U.S. history. Forty percent of all Millennials are "nonwhite" i.e., African-American, Asian, and, especially, Hispanic. These groups will represent an even greater percentage of those Millennials turning 18 in the next decade. Virtually all of the Millennials' movement away from the Democrats and toward the Republicans in the Pew research has occurred among white Millennials, who, in spite of their increasing Republican proclivities, still more strongly identify as Democrats to a narrow but statistically greater extent than older whites. Nonwhite Millennials continue to overwhelmingly identify as Democrats over Republicans (71% to 17%).

Millennials are also half as likely as older generations to be white Evangelicals or Catholics and a quarter less likely to be white Mainline Protestants, groups that in recent years have trended toward the GOP. While the "Teavangelicals" gathering this weekend in Texas at the invitation of Rick Perry, its governor and possible GOP presidential candidate, may represent an important part of the Republican activist base, they don't represent Millennials. Members of America's young adult generation are twice as likely to be Hispanic Catholics or unaffiliated with any faith and a third more likely to be non-Christians -- Jews and increasingly Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists -- groups that tilt toward the Democratic Party. Any political movement that attempts to use Christian doctrine as the core of its appeal is sure to turn away most Millennial voters.

There are a range of other factors that seem likely to limit a wholesale movement of Millennials to the Republican Party, so long as it adheres to its current belief system. For one thing, Millennials clearly endorse an economically activist government. A March 2011 Pew survey indicated that by 54% to 39% Millennials favored a bigger government that provides more services rather than a smaller government that provides fewer services. Moreover, most Millennials are confident that governmental activism is useful in ameliorating societal problems. A majority of them (52%) believe that government often does a better job than people give it credit for. These beliefs suggest that for many Millennials the major complaint about President Obama and his party is not that they favor "big government," but that they haven't used government as often and effectively as Millennials would like.

In addition, one in five Millennials has an immigrant parent. Not surprisingly then, large majorities of Millennials believe that immigrants strengthen the country (69%) and support a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (82%).

Most Millennials (including white members of the cohort) are also strikingly tolerant on social issues. About two-thirds believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society (69%) and support the legalization of gay marriage (64%).

Such attitudes make most Millennials uncomfortable with the anti-immigrant and religiously conservative views that so many Republicans, particularly Tea Partiers, espouse. As a result, some young Republicans such as Meghan McCain, the Senator's daughter, and Margaret Hoover, the 31st president's great granddaughter, have called on their party to moderate its stance on social issues in order to attract Millennial voters.

Finally, most Millennials do not approve of the GOP's current highly ideological approach to politics. The Millennial Generation is made up of pragmatic idealists who search for win-win solutions to the problems facing the nation.

As a result, in a Pew survey conducted during the recent dispute over raising the nation's debt ceiling, a large majority of Millennials (71% to 57% for older generations) preferred a balanced approach that would have combined spending cuts and tax increases to deal with the federal deficit. Two-thirds of the generation (65%) called on Washington politicians to compromise with those holding different views in order to prevent federal government default rather than sticking with their principles (28%). Not surprisingly, after viewing the summer's events in the Capitol, a large majority of Millennials (60% vs. 27%) believed that the Republican rather than the Democratic Party was most likely to take "extreme" positions on issues.

For all of these reasons, most Millennials simply don't like the Republican Party very much. In March, Pew research indicated that a majority of all Millennials (56%) held unfavorable attitudes toward the GOP and favorable attitudes toward the Democratic Party (57%).

Of course, none of this is etched in stone. The Democratic Party still has to convince Millennials that it can effectively use government to solve the problems confronting their generation and the nation if it is to retain the cohort's loyalty. But the GOP is in the much more difficult position of having to change almost its entire imagery and approach to politics and government in order to win over skeptical members of the Millennial Generation. GOP attacks on Pell Grant funding and attempts to restrict student's ability to vote suggest many Republican office holders haven't gotten the message about the importance of this new generation of voters. The big question for Republicans is whether their ideological Boomer leadership will ever be willing to alter their ideological principles to accommodate Millennial attitudes and beliefs.

As we point out in our book, Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America (to be published in September), Millennials will comprise a quarter of the voting age population in 2012 and more than one out of every three adult Americans by 2020. In politics, as with just about everything else, which way Millennials decide to go, will determine the country's future. Right now, that future is up for grabs.

Crossposted from HuffPo. Follow Michael Hais and Morley Winograd on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikeandmorley

Today Margaret Hoover - great-granddaughter of the first president that sent our country into a depression and former employee of the last president that sent our country into a depression, released a book saying that for the survival of the GOP they've got to hook into young voters. According to an interview with Hoover on the Washington Post's blog, she believes the magic eight ball of politics predicts an outlook that isn't so good for the GOP.

"If you vote for the same party in three successive presidential elections, she says, your political loyalties are pretty much set for life. The GOP lost the youth vote in 2004 and 2008, and may do so again in 2012 if it doesn’t break through with these voters."

Where it gets funny is that she says that in order to get young people the GOP shouldn't turn more socially liberal as some (including me) have suggested.

Her message is simple and not unlike that of the Tea Party movement, for which she has effusive praise. (“Personally I think it’s an incredible contribution to the Republican Party.”) To capture the most racially diverse, politically independent generation we have ever seen, Hoover says,”We need to shift the focus to fiscal issues.We have to talk specifically about their future.” Republicans have a convincing case to make against President Obama, she argues. “He’s taken a pass on their issues.”

Here's the thing - Hoover isn't alone in her "talk about the budget" philosophy. The incredibly attractive fake Republican Meghan McCain schools the GOP with 7 tips for Presidential Hopefuls

"...Most young voters my age don't remember Newt Gingrich's claim to fame; after all, the Clinton impeachment trial was so ‘90s.
What the Republican Party needs is a candidate unafraid to put the president up against the wall and call him out on all the damage his administration has done, especially to the economy, in the last three years."

This post is around the same time McCain appeared on MSNBC and talked about the coolness factor in Presidential candidates. Politico: You are not cooler than Obama.

Meghan McCain wants the Republican candidates running for president to stop trying to be cool. She hopes they will step away from the comfort of Fox’s Greta Van Susteren and befriend MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. And she thinks Tim Pawlenty is kind of wimpy.
Along with a willingness to challenge the president, she wants candidates to remember that they are “not cooler than President Obama.” “No, you are not. No, seriously, you are not, not even you, Sarah Palin,” she advised. Instead, she wants a Republican to emerge as the “smart candidate, the serious candidate.”

Of Palin, McCain wrote, “If she enters the race, there will be a proverbial tsunami of media coverage for months. Don’t panic and ride it out. The cream always rises to the top and at some point she is going to have to do something other than come up with clever sound bites.”

As if Meghan and Hoover's fiscal futures aren't enough a few weeks ago I noticed a weird tweet from Lindsey Lohan who made a comment about the US Dollar saying that it will be worthless if the Fed keeps printing money. Well if you asked what a coked up rich girl knows about the fiscal responsibility of the US Government you wouldn't be wrong. It turns out Lindsey's tweet was out of character for a reason... she was paid to tweet it - though no one seems to know who paid her to tweet - maybe Ted Nugent... She later clarified that even though she was paid to tweet that she really does care about gas and food prices.

But wait - there's more. Remember Ted Nugent? It's ok I don't know who he is either....

His commentary came about a week before TV writer and Hollywood Republican Rob Long wrote a similar commentary which would have been original had that old Ted Nugent guy not said like... the exact same thing the week before.

Rather than asking young people to get involved as old man Ted instructed, Long took a rather short approach calling young people stupid for not realizing that "democrats" are financing their futures.

You know.... when I see one of these pieces I roll my eyes - but when several pieces pop up and organizations begin to discuss the solvency of pension programs and the deficit I start to look around for Pete Peterson acting as a ventriloquist while shoving a check in their back pockets.

A recent op-ed in the WSJ by republican strategist Karl Rove proves that the GOP is actually considering young voters to be a serious issue:

"The first such mistake would be forgetting that the target voters are those ready to swing away from Mr. Obama (independents, Hispanics, college educated and young voters) and those whose opposition to Mr. Obama has deepened since 2008 (seniors and working-class voters)."

I've said it before - I couldn't agree more. The GOP should go after young voters just as the Democratic Party should go after young voters. I have faith that the message of the GOP won't resonate with the GOP (much less young voters) but if you have the GOP going after youth in a hard way my hope is that the Dems will freak out and do it more.

But in a recent survey on the Millennial Generation (one of the largest sample sizes and largest surveys ever done) young people indicated that the GOP just isn't the right place for them - regardless of what Ted, Long, Meghan, and Hoover might want to believe.

When it comes to big government, Millennials are true believers. Millennials are significantly more likely to favor larger government in comparison to their older counterparts who find larger government to be a hindrance.

I would never say that young voters are always and will always be democratic voters. I think young voters are independent voters who overwhelmingly support progressive policies and are increasingly socially liberal. They reject the Tea Party despite being more fiscal conservative. They will never not ever not ever be able to agree with someone who is anti-gay, anti-women, in favor of prohibition, hates the government and the poor, just to agree with being a little more fiscally responsible. Not gonna happen. Ever. Not ..... EVER.

That said.... if Democrats don't get their collective asses in gear (pun intended) when it comes to young voters they won't show up on Election Day - for them - or anyone. Anecdotally, I heard a democratic Congresswoman who did a political meeting with the President toward the beginning of the year and told him that you just shouldn't count on young voters this election. I think this shows that if the President doesn't "count on young voters" someone else will be and it won't be in his favor. Because the young conservatives will turn out - but the young progressives will not.... because no one will have asked for their votes. As one reader pointed out - maybe the message isn't "don't count on young voters" but rather "don't take young voters for granted."

• Joan Walsh provides some interesting food for thought regarding the health of the Obama coalition as we move toward 2012. How might this coalition of disaffected Republicans, progressives, young voters, first time voters, labor, and African Americans and Latinos look this time around, and more importantly, will it be as powerful?
  

  "One big problem for Obama is that he assembled an unprecedented electoral coalition in 2008, but it wasn't a governing coalition. Progressives like to think of the themselves as the president's base, and it's partly true: Obama won thanks to an unrivaled turnout of young voters, first time voters, African Americans and Latinos; and an energetic labor effort. But they – we – weren't enough by ourselves. He also did well with independents and even some Republicans who were ashamed of what the Bush Cheney years did to their party. Predictably, a lot of those voters are going home now. I'm not sure they'll be entirely happy with what they'll find when they get there, or whether they'll discover the Tea Party ransacked the place. But they're uncomfortable with the way Obama used government to solve the banking crisis, stimulate the ailing economy and extend health insurance to more people. Of course, on the left he hasn't done enough on those fronts. When both sides are carping, the common wisdom goes, that means you must be doing something right. I'm not sure that's true when you're facing re-election."

• Rock the Vote President Heather Smith argues that state voting systems restrict young Americans, and demands improvement in The Hill. The youth movement can't talk about this enough!
• Colbert tackles the youth vote:

  "The GOP brand is about as popular with kids as an episode of "60 Minutes" hosted by a tube of Sensodyne."

  
  

  The Colbert Report
  Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

• Does Facebook exacerbate our society's obsession with "Keeping up with the Jones'?" This article suggests that yes, it does, and the consequences could lead to depression.
• Meanwhile, here is a report suggesting that for all the widgets, tools, and gadgets meant to connect young people to various initiatives online, they won't improve political participation in young people.
• It's nothing new, but it probably remains to be the largest story impacting youth today: unemployment.
• Just in case you didn't see it yesterday, an interesting video from Lee Camp calling on the Millennial Generation to get out of the metaphorical basement.
• 20 Questions with Paul Ryan, including, "Do you think the GOP could win back young voters?"
• KPAX out of Montana discusses the state's #4 ranking on the Rock the Vote Scorecard.

Michelle Obama is more powerful than I thought.

First, I came across a Media Matters post highlighting yet another crazy piece of trash story from Fox News. This one claims that Michelle Obama gave "weird" relationship advice in her recent meeting with English schoolgirls. Fox used a relatively tame Daily Caller piece as an inspiration for the story, adding the "weird" language in their own headline:

This is the text from the Daily Caller story:

First lady Michelle Obama always believed her husband would be "useful," yet never expected him to land the most powerful job in the world.

"I always thought he would be useful, but I had no idea he was going to be president," the first lady told a group of schoolgirls gathered to hear her speak Wednesday at Christ Church College in Oxford, England.

Michelle Obama went on about the president, whom she met more than 20 years ago while working at Sidley & Austin, a corporate law firm in Chicago. The first lady was tasked with mentoring Barack Obama and their relationship blossomed.

[...]

"I knew he was a special person. And it had nothing to do with his education, it had nothing to do with potential," the first lady said of Barack Obama, who attended Harvard Law School and Columbia University. "It was those kind of values that made me think, you don't meet people like that often. And when you couple that with talent -- and he's cute."

Reflecting on her "useful" spouse, the first lady had some relationship suggestions for the young females in attendance, warning them to steer clear of negative influences.

"Reach for partners that make you better," Michelle Obama said. "Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts. Good relationships feel good, they feel right...It's with the people you surround yourselves with, and that's just as important as the school that you choose."

Hmmm... not finding anything that weird. In fact, it sounds like what I would hope any well-meaning, successful, normal adult would say.

After reading this nonsense, I just chalked it up to another instance of Fox being Fox. But then I remembered reading a USA Today story a couple days ago that might explain Fox's sudden assault (this story, as well as the ridiculous Common controversy) on Michelle Obama.

First lady Michelle Obama is holding steady with the support of two-thirds of voters in a new poll - and she's gaining ground among young people as she's starting to hit the campaign trail on behalf of her husband's re-election campaign.

A Marist Poll out today finds that 66% of registered voters have a favorable impression of the first lady compared with 17% who have an unfavorable impression. The rest said they were unsure.

[...]

The biggest gap is generational. Millennials (ages 18-30) are crazy about her. They give her an 84% approval rating. The numbers drop from there as people age. Gen Xers (ages 31-46) give her a 67% approval rating; Baby Boomers (ages 47-65) give her 62%; the Silent or Greatest Generation (over 65) gives her 59%.

Emphasis added.

There are probably political scientists out there who might argue that spouses don't have electoral value and that this doesn't really mean anything. But when her favorability is as high as it is, especially with young people, and with her being one of the few people speaking officially about the 2012 campaign, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that a Republican mouthpiece like Fox News might deliberately misrepresent stories to temper her appeal.

There's no shortage of contempt for youth civic engagement these days, apparently.

Yesterday, in Marshalltown, Iowa, troubled presidential candidate Newt Gingrich hosted a town hall meeting. The senior citizen-dominated crowd heard Gingrich argue that, since immigrants need to pass a citizenship test to become U.S. citizens, "young Americans" should be required to take a similar test prior to exercising their right to vote. Gingrich's suggestion was met with applause from the crowd. ThinkProgress captured the transcript and the video.

GINGRICH: [Immigrants] need to pass a test of American history. And candidly, it wouldn’t be bad to have a test like that for young Americans before they start voting.

Ironically, Newt shows that his idiocy extends into the civic realm, and that he himself might experience difficulty passing the test he suggests.

Newt would benefit from picking up any history textbook and reading about the Voter Rights Act of 1965 and the 26th Amendment.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 explicitly prohibits the use of any device or test to deny the right to vote on account of race. It states that "no citizen shall be denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his failure to comply with any test or device in any State." After President Nixon signed a bill into law in 1970 (based on The Voting Rights Act of 1965) that set the minimum voting age in federal, state, and local election at 18, and the Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400. U.S. 112 (1970), Congress and state legislatures overwhelmingly passed the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, invalidating the Supreme Court's previous ruling. The Amendment reads:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Newt didn't mention any specifics as a part of his proposal (what is "young," and how old does one have to be to be deemed competent enough to vote?), but unless he plans on pushing for a repeal of the 26th Amendment, it's a clear violation of the Constitution. Either Newt's trapped in a pre-1971 time warp, or he's as stupid as he thinks we are. Maybe both.

Legal issues aside, Newt's stupidity also reflects the grave danger Republicans face moving into the future. The GOP knows that the electorate is diversifying before their eyes and gaining thousands of unfriendly Millennials by the day. Politically, they have their work cut out for them.

Unfortunately, for these communities, the GOP frequently refuses to acknowledge its oppressive and harmful stances on policy and the Democratic process and conduct this work in an honest and legal manner. Accordingly, it refuses to engage in authentic outreach efforts with young voters and minority voters, choosing not to listen to these groups' concerns when it comes time to make policy. And so Republicans, to retain the power they do have, are forced to shrink our democracy, to rig the game, out of desperation.

The Republican Party knows that young people suffer because of its stances on myriad issues, whether that's the manufacturing of intelligence that got us into Iraq, the decline of Pell grant funding throughout Bush's two terms, the squandering of the trillions of surplus dollars over the last ten years, the outsourcing of our jobs and futures overseas, or the continued desecration of our environment; consequently, they don't trust us to make the "right" choice in the voting booth, or apparently, any choice at all.

Newt's suggestion that some Americans are not competent enough to exercise our constitutional rights is ironic, illegal, and cowardly. We must fight back by not only standing up to Newt, but also by vigorously contesting all of the disenfranchisement efforts the GOP has proposed to keep us from losing our inalienable right.

Update: Young Democrats of America and Democracy for America have teamed up to fight back against GOP voter suppression efforts all over the country. Newt's remarks are simply an extension of a philosophy that clearly governs the Republican Party's approach to democracy. Their action alert is provided below.

As a legislator in Montana, I’m proud that my state has defeated several bills aimed at suppressing the vote.

Unfortunately Montana is one of only a few success stories when it comes to our efforts to combat a concerted Republican plan to make voting much more difficult in states across the country.

In a New York Times editorial from last week, the Advancement Project, a civil rights advocacy group, described this rash of Republican-sponsored legislation as “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”

That’s why two organizations dedicated to preserving the rights of all Americans have teamed up to take a stand against this outright assault on the fundamental democratic value of voting – you can join us here.

As Vice President of the Young Democrats of America, I’m excited to partner with Democracy for America, the people-powered political action committee working on progressive issues across the country to bring attention to this attack on young peoples’ voting rights.

A democracy depends on the people choosing their elected officials – not the politicians choosing their voters – and for that reason, DFA and YDA are launching a national campaign to defend democracy and defeat the Koch-funded attacks on voting rights.

Join us in defending democracy right now.

In addition to a this national statement in support of voting rights, YDA and DFA will be working together on a state by state basis to defeat the individual bills aimed at suppressing the votes of young people, working families, people with disabilities, the elderly and minorities.

There is little else more precious than our ability to participate in our democracy. Join me today in standing up for voting rights.

Thanks for all you do,

Representative Ellie Boldman Hill
Democrat
Missoula, Montana