issues

Over the course of the last week, I've picked through the polling results from the recent Harvard Institute of Politics Survey and the joint MTV/CBS News poll. We've talked about Obama's lead among young voters, and McCain's deficit among the same, and we've talked about how young people are engaged at a much higher level this year than in previous years. Now I want to take a look at young voter's policy concerns.

There tend to be a few bits of conventional wisdom when it comes to young voters and policy issues. The first is that the only thing young people care about is the draft, or as Ralph Nader recently (and inaccurately) stated, the only thing that will increase youth engagement is the threat of a draft. The second is that young people are consumed by humanitarian issues like the genocide in Darfur. There are grains of truth in both statements - in 2004 there was a lot of messaging done by Rock the Vote and other groups around the draft that did in fact help spur youth turnout, and young people are disproportionately active around the issue of genocide. As with most pieces of conventional wisdom, though, these do not convey the whole truth.

The results of the Harvard IOP Survey reveal that the concerns of young voters have shifted radically since the fall of 2007. Six months ago, Iraq was the #1 issue for 37% of young Americans. Today, that number has shrunk to 20%. In March 2007, the economy was the top concern of just 5% of young people. Today it ranks as the greatest concern of 30% of young voters. The war was a motivator for youth action in 2004, but in 2008, it seems that the tanking economy will drive young people to the ballot box.

The Harvard IOP Survey honed in on these concerns through its novel use of multiple criteria in ranking the importance of youth issues. The survey asked respondents what issues were most important in determining how they would cast their ballot in November and what issues were most relevant to them personally. They used answers in both categories to construct a composite score that could more accurately reflect the importance of various policy issues to young voters:

The reasons for this shift, it turns out, is that most young people feel that our current economic downtown has a greater impact on them personally than the war. Young people who are applying to college or attending school are worried about the skyrocketing costs of tuition. Many are graduating from college, on average, with $20k in debt, and they are worried about their job prospects. According to the survey, 70% of college students believe that it will be difficult to find a job upon graduation. By contrast, the war only directly affects a small portion of young people today. If you are worried about how you will pay off your student loans and make rent next month, it gets a lot harder to worry about something happening on the other side of the globe. It's probably even harder when you consider how much activism has gone to opposing the war with so few tangible results.

Looking through the chart, there are some other interesting facts to be gleaned about the activism and policy concerns of the Millennial generation. In most polls that I've seen, the environment ranks well below bread and butter issues like the economy and health care. As the graph above shows, the environment typically garners a paltry 5% or so of support from most youth. Yet the environment usually is considered one of the policy areas around which young people - particularly college students - are most active. Meanwhile, health care consistently ranks as one of the top concerns of young people, but there is almost no youth activism around universal health care. It's a strange dichotomy and I've been at a loss to explain it.

Judging by the IOP results, "Net Relevance" seems to be the key. Both issues are perceived as important ones, yet for some reason young people tend to see the environment as a policy concern that more directly affects their lives. It's an interesting finding, and may be skewed by the fact that the survey sampled 18 - 24 year olds, fully half of which are in college and are thus likely to be on their university's health care plan (or that of their parents). I wonder if the two stats might reverse (and fall more in line with conventional wisdom) if the sample was expanded to cover all 18 - 29 year olds?

What's clear is that young people are driven by a variety of concerns, but the economy trumps all. In a year of record youth turnout, candidates up and down the ballot would do well to talk about creating an economy that help the Millennial generation - also known as Generation Debt - climb out of the economic hole.

James Durbin at Tech Republican and Stuart Rothenberg are both up in arms about Rock the Vote and it's "liberal" message this week. Durbin is concerned that Republicans aren't reaching out appropriately to young voters - evidenced by the lack of conservative partners listed on the Rock the Vote website and the predominance of "liberal" messages on MySpace. Rothenberg is flailing about somewhat wildly, both upset that Rock the Vote talked about the draft in its 2004 campaign while simultaneously saying that fear of a draft is a losing message with diminishing returns for Democrats (who Rothenberg also equates with Rock the Vote).

I actually agree with Durbin - Republicans are dropping the ball online among young people just as much as they're losing the money and organizing war online against the progressive blogosphere. Rothenberg has a few valid points, though he misses the extreme contradiction inherent in the conservative position on the draft - the Bush/Republican strategy for the war requires more troops and a draft is the only way to get enough of them without breaking the military beyond repair. If conservatives don't want a draft, they're ultimately unserious about supporting the troops and "winning" the war. If they do want a draft, they energize young voters and the parents of young voters against Republicans. It's a lose-lose situation for them.

But all of this is irrelevant. Here's the thing that both Durbin and Rothenberg alike are missing: As so many Conservatives and pundits alike are fond of saying, this isn't about one tactical decision or another, this is about our values as Americans. And right now, the values of the Millennial Generation are heading in the opposite direction of the values of the Republican Party. Let me remind readers of the recent findings by Democracy Corps:

On issue after issue, in poll after poll (see here and here), young voters are aligning more with Democrats than Republicans, and those are value-based decisions. Millennial voters support a multilateralist foreign policy, we support policies that protect the environment and civil liberties. Not even mentioned in this Democracy Corps chart are cultural wedge issues like choice and gay marriage, both of which are supported by more younger people than not. Just to twist the knife in a little more, let's remember the fact that Millennials are the most diverse and tolerant generation in American history - two things that don't mesh well with the GOP base.

This is why Durbin is missing the point with his tactical discussions about "going where the youth are," and Rothenberg's commentary about the draft misses the forest for the trees. Just as the tens of millions of dollars the conservative machine dumps into youth outreach and bench-building each year aren't winning them any converts among Millennials (conservatives outspend progressives about 5-1 on youth outreach), showing up on MySpace or partnering with Rock the Vote isn't a panacea or Republican ills and it doesn't matter one whit whether or not Rock the Vote or Democrats play the draft card. It's the values, stupid. It's your policies.

(On a side not - despite Durbin's claims - you can't wait until these kids get older and "age into conservatism." That doesn't really happen. Partisanship is a habit (pdf). Lose them now, and chances are you've lost them for the rest of their voting lives.)

This is why the most interesting thing that I see happening right now on the GOP side of the aisle in youth organizing is Republican Youth Majority, a pro-choice, pro-environment, fiscally conservative organization that is trying to rebuild the Republican brand among Millennial voters. Tactics aside, if the Republicans are going to retain any semblance of competitiveness among this new generation of voters, they're going to have to realign themselves on a number of issues to be more in touch with the values of the Millennial Generation. It's going to be a long, hard slog as they've got 8 years of a Bush Presidency and a campaign/policy apparatus that is fundamentally at odds with those values, but I think that if they can become sustainable, this is the group to watch over the next couple years for hints of a Republican revitalization among young voters. Personally, I'd be thrilled to see the next generation of Republicans move left on these issues.