newsweek

Over the weekend, Craig linked to an open letter to young voters written by Jonathan Darman for Newsweek entitled "Ask Not What You Can Do for Barack Obama, but What Barack Obama Can Do For You." The piece is somewhat unique in the current media narrative in that, rather than announce young voters' emergence as a new power block, it challenges them to wield that new-found power to serve their own interests.

The cynic in me says that this is all very mavericky, and makes for great copy if you are trying to scoop competitors and "offer a fresh take." Darman even has the street cred to write this (he's a Millennial), and enough snark to appeal to the Gawker set.

And really, if we're honest, that's all you've done this year—show up. You voted (umm … you're supposed to vote). You didn't get hung up on a candidate's race (umm … you're not supposed to care about race). Your one lasting gift to political posterity this year: the text message. Greatest Generation, watch your back.

The problem is that his piece is neither aware of the political realities surrounding the youth vote, nor does it offer a coherent theory of change by which young voters could answer his call to arms. Without those, his open letter is just so much concern-trolling, a new form of the youth apathy narrative put out by the traditional media for so long. Whereas before we had "youth don't vote," now we are confronted with "youth vote, but . . . "

Darman's analysis falls short in a number of places:

1. He fails to realize that the youth vote is still in a politically fragile place, and it's power is not yet proven to the political class and media.
2. Darman identifies only policies youth should push, he does not identify any means by which such a push can/should occur. He fails to identify a vehicle for change. Perhaps this is because the youth vote has fewer institutions supporting its interests and through which it can push for its own self interests. Darman must know this, but calling attention to that and working through a theory of change would destroy the thesis of his letter.
3. Despite those difficulties, there are youth organizations beginning to work on this problem. Darman is unaware of or completely ignores their work.

Taking these point by point:

Youth Turnout: Darman operates as if the youth vote is a completely proven and viable constituency with equal power to other, older constituencies. This is not true. While I agree that young voters are turning out in record numbers and we will continue to do so, not everyone is convinced of this within the political class and the media. What's more, the youth vote will sink or swim with the Obama campaign. If Obama wins, the youth vote's place as a powerful constituency will be solidified. If he loses, it will instantly collapse. That's why this quote by Darman is so disturbing:

I do not mean to suggest that asking questions of Obama will help him get elected. Some of them will probably hurt his chances. An Obama defeat is an outcome many of you cannot fathom and most of you would like to avoid. But if our generation fails to hold Obama to a higher standard in the final weeks of this campaign, it will most likely get what it deserves: a decidedly ordinary President Obama and a new generation's descent into cynicism. This would be a tragedy, for, in truth, there is one thing that makes our generation special. We still have the power to believe.

How nihilistic. If Obama wins, our generation descends into cynicism. If he loses, we "get to believe," but no political operative or journalist will ever take the youth vote seriously again.

While I agree with Darman's overarching point that we need to hold Obama accountable, our ability to do so increases an order of magnitude after election day when 1) our ability to organize and turnout and deliver votes is proven; and 2) when there is actual legislation on the table to organize for or against. Right now the youth vote has enormous potential political power. It's not until November 5th, after an Obama win, that such power becomes real. In many respects, Darman's letter puts the cart before the horse.

Policy vs. Pathways: Dorman identifies a laundry list of policies on which young voters must hold Barack Obama accountable if we are to be considered "truly engaged and credible" as a constituency. Yet he offers zero information on just how such accountability works. Worse, he writes as if young voters had the same avenues of expression and leverage available to them as older demographics.

There is no youth AARP. There are no lobbyists out there working day and night to advance the interests of young voters. There are no media stories about how taking a certain policy position will be politically dangerous for Obama with the youth vote. In short, young voters have zero leverage in this conversation. More so because, as I stated above, the youth vote will sink or swim with Obama. An Obama loss would be disasterous for the political power of young voters. With our interests so inextricably linked, it's hard to exert any leverage over the candidate.

Movement in the Making: This is not to say that some groups out there are not working on smart ways to organize in support of Obama and in support of a youth policy platform. Generation Vote, a collaboration of USSA, The League, Young People For, Choice USA, Center for Progressive Leadership, The Ruckus Society, Generation Change, Campus Camp Wellstone, the Hip Hop Caucus, Black Youth Vote, the Youth and Campus divisions of NAACP and Planned Parenthood, the Hip Hop Congress, Youth Speaks, the Youth Voter Coalition, and the Bus Federation recently released a youth policy agenda, for which they are calling for signatures of support. Power Vote, a project of the Energy Action Coalition, is currently collecting 1 million signatures behind a comprehensive energy reform package. So far they have collected almost 150,000 signatures.

I can also attest to the fact that there is much chatter in the youth vote world about beginning to organize around legislative priorities and a youth agenda come November 5th. Darman makes no reference to any of these activities in his piece.

In closing, I also find it ironic that, when addressing a generation noted for it's sense of community, teamwork, and selflessness, he would choose selfishness and self-interest as the framework for his open letter. Perhaps the more constructive frame would have been "Ask not what Obama can do you for, but what you and Obama can do together."

Two things in need of debunking today. First, Sarah informs me that Newsweek reporter Christopher Dickey was on Talk of the Nation today making scurrilous claims about 2004 youth turnout. When a caller asked him about the youth vote and their potential impact in November, here's what he had to say (paraphrase):

Dickey:"No, because young people don't vote"
Talk of the Nation: "Well they sure came out in primaries and caucuses this year"
Dickey: "Well they did but they were so bothered by Bush in 2004 but they failed to elect John Kerry... "

As all of you know, young people increased their vote by 4.3 million and their turnout rose from 40 to 49% over 2000 levels. They were also the only age demographic to vote for John Kerry, favoring the Democrat 54 - 45% over President Bush.

Resting the entire election on the shoulders of a single demographic is a dishonest and unfair analysis. As a friend and colleague of mine likes to say "the youth vote never turns out until they do. And even then it wasn't enough." Damned if you do, damned if you don't, aye Mr. Dickey?

If you have time, write Mr. Dickey a friendly email stating just that. His email address is shadowland [at] newsweek [dot] com.

Second, the delusional College Republicans hang their hat on a single poll by Zogby (of all people) to claim that McCain is starting to take the youth vote away from Obama:

However, a new ATV/ Zogby poll shows that is not the case, and that McCain’s support among young voters is increasing rapidly. The poll says that “McCain gained 20% and Obama lost 16% among voters ages 18-29.” Obama still leads among young voters 49%-38%, but with the way his support has been increasing, we might see McCain becoming very competitive for the youth vote soon.

This poll just goes to show that you shouldn’t believe all the hype. Young people all across America are getting excited for John McCain and the GOP, and will turn out in large numbers for our candidates in the fall.

I wouldn't put nearly so much faith in Zogby. He's notoriously inaccurate and with only ~1,000 respondents in the whole poll, his data on young voters probably has a ridiculously high margin of error. Add in the fact that he used landlines, and so probably missed a lot of low-income and Latino "cell only" users (who are also young) makes me think even less of his results.

And besides. 49% - 38%? If you assume a margin of error of even 5% points, that could put the race for young voters at 54 - 33%, not too far off from the Dem vs. Repub congressional results in the 2006 wave election. I'll take that margin anyday.

I wanted to jump out ahead of this one. Newsweek is reporting on the Obama campaign's courting of young voters and is using a new poll they commissioned to report that young voters are heavily favoring Barack in Iowa, yet their polling shows no such thing. Emphasis mine:

That's a tall order. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama trails Clinton 25-31 percent among all Iowa Democrats, but leads 28-24 percent among likely caucus-goers. The difference, according to previously unpublished results from the poll: 20 percent of those likely voters were under 30, compared to 13 percent of the wider Democratic pool—meaning that when caucus-goers skew young, Obama is leading. “If Obama really has the ability to go out and identify young voters and motivate them wherever they live, he would, in theory, be able to make a big difference,” says pollster Mark Blumenthal. "It's unlikely, but it's not impossible." It's important to note that the NEWSWEEK stats should be taken with a boulder of salt; caucuses are tricky to poll, and the small sample size makes for a big margin of error.

If you actually look at the poll, the margin of error among likely caucus-goers is a high 7%, putting Obama's "lead" among young people well within the margin of error. There is still not enough hard evidence to back up Obama campaign manager Plouffe's assertion that "Barack's support among Iowa young voters exceeded all the support of the other candidates combined ," and there is every reason to suspect that Obama has only a slight edge over Clinton among young Iowans. Newsweek should stop reading their polls like tea leaves and actually report on solid, conclusive findings.