Mitt Romney

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.

GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is going after young voters blaming President Obama for the high youth unemployment rate that is twice the national average. He makes the first GOP candidates to directly go after young voters in this way.

The Democratic National Committee Press office today sent a story from The Nation about Romney's questionable jobs record in Massachusetts saying:

"Such a claim—that President Obama has failed at creating jobs and Romney’s private sector experience means he would do better—naturally begs the question: how has Mitt Romney done at creating jobs?

Not so well, as it turns out. First, during that quarter-century of private sector experience, Romney worked at a private equity firm that attempted to take over and turn around failing companies. As Bloomberg reported last week, that often meant laying off workers. Other times, they failed to revive companies and shed workers in bankruptcy. Relative to an innovative entrepreneur such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who invented a product and built a large company, Romney’s record in the private sector was not one of impressive job creation. These incidents have haunted Romney’s career since 1994, when laid-off workers protested his Senate campaign.

But even if you were to assume that any private-sector experience equals job creation, it does not necessarily follow that business success translates into success in public office. As Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, Romney presided over anemic job growth. According to Reuters, “Labor Department figures showed Massachusetts ranked 47th among the states in the rate of jobs growth in those four years —ahead of only Ohio, Michigan and Louisiana.” You might expect this to make Romney shy about constantly attacking anyone else’s record on job growth, but it hasn’t. Nor, apparently, has a series of embarrassing revelations about Romney’s campaign commercials and speeches."

Read more about Republicans going after the youth vote in the 2012 Election here.

The "student" section of Mitt Romney's website seems to have evaporated into the interwebs, but the man himself was on the ground today in Michigan dispensing sage advice to high school students in an attempt to woo the youth vote away from McCain and Huckabee:

Romney was a bit less emotive and a bit more reasoned in his approach to telling the students what they could get out of high school. First, he compared life to the show, “Let’s Make a Deal,” from the 1970s, explaining that choices in life are all about the trades made.

“And the difference, however, between life and that show is that you know what’s behind the curtain. People will tell you what’s behind the curtain,” he advised. “You get to make a trade, but you make it with your eyes open. You’re not blind, and so you’re making choices now, and you will make choices over the coming years, and you know what the consequences of good choices or bad choices will be.”

Jeebus. I don't know what's worse, that, his youth fundraising pyramid scheme, or comMITT 2 the FUTURE - the now defunct youth operation.

Still, credit where it is due. The man got his clock cleaned among young voters by Huckabee in Iowa and McCain in New Hampshire. Michigan is his last stand and he's reaching for every vote he can get. Not a bad move considering that Michigan residents can vote in either primary and the Democratic race is uncontested due to intra-party squabbles about the nominating contest.

As atonement for this slow news day, I also offer this moment of Mitt Romney Zen:

A number of newsworthy articles around the tubes today:

• US News is running an excellent story that gets the youth vote right. The biggest shock of the story though, comes from Mitt Romney. You may remember that long ago I reported on Mitt Romney's scheme to get young voters raising cash for his campaign by promising them a 10% cut on anything raised over $1000? Well according to this story, that program has brought in $100,000. No word as to whether or not any of the budding fundraisers actually got their cut.
• Ben Adler has a great story at the Politico about what the newly declared January 3rd caucus date means for the Democratic campaign's youth vote strategy. Adler notes that Obama will be looking to have his supporters caucus at home to spread support across the state. Edwards, on the other hand, will look to have his supporters caucus in university towns, where his support is weak. Adler notes that not all students will have a choice, as some dorms may not be open during the caucus.
• On a related note, the Politico just launched a students section: Campus Politico.
• Finally, Shang Ting Lipton takes a look at the role of pop culture (or lack of) in Hillary's campaign in her Huffington Post column: Going Hillywood.

• The Mitt Romney campaign is asking their supporters to take materials provided on the Romney for President website and remix them into campaign videos. Well, the folks on the Slate political and video teams have taken this opportunity and used it to poke fun at Romney, who once equated his 5 sons' work on his campaign to the service of our soldiers in Iraq.

• The Obama campaign has started to adopt some cultural outreach tactics. Volunteers from Bay-area schools recently set up shop outside a local music festival.
• Millennial blogger and Yale student Zach Marks compares Democratic and Republican outreach to young voters on the campaign trail in this column over at Huffington Post.
• Congress may have passed the College Cost Reduction Act, but it looks like increases in Pell Grants are still no sure thing.

Things in the world of progressive youth politics worth checking out today:

• The Pew Research Center for People and the Press confirms that viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are still the most politically informed Americans. Score another one for the stoned slacker brigades.
• David All at Tech President outlines five types of viral video he'd like to see by November 2008 (with examples). It's a well thought-out selection (though not comprehensive), and some of his examples are right on the money.
• Lauren Wolfe, president of the College Democrats, was on MyDD Blog Talk Radio this weekend discussing the College Dems new New Media strategy. Facebook, Video, Podcasts and a new website launching in the fall, listen here (iTunes, Windows Media).
• Finally, a few weeks ago we told you that Mitt Romney was trying to entice young people to fundraise for his campaign by offering them 10% of all they raise above $1,000. Turns out that may not be so ethical.

This is interesting:

A millionaire thanks to his work as a venture capitalist, Mitt Romney is acutely aware of the motivating power of money. His presidential campaign hopes it will have a similar effect on college students, which is why it's offering them a cut of their fundraising.

Participants in "Students for Mitt" will get 10 percent of the money they raise for the campaign beyond the first $1,000. While candidates often offer professional fundraisers commissions up to 8 percent, campaign experts believe the Massachusetts Republican is the first to do so with the legion of college students who have historically served as campaign volunteers.

"For the kids that want to get involved in a political campaign and they don't want to spend their summer painting houses, they can help the campaign and themselves at the same time," said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden.

Better living through consultancy. It sets up an interesting dichotomy between the Democratic and Republican campaigns, as it's the exact opposite strategy from that of John Edwards, whose One Corps seeks to involve younger voters by appealing to their desire to serve their country and participate in civic life via a community service based model.

Serving yourself vs. serving others. Is this desperation on the part of Republicans for some youthful blood, or is it a smart play? It will be an interesting battle to watch.

You can also read about Romney's use of the interweb here.