2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: If the Democratic Party continues to go [View all]Sancho
(9,070 posts)I first met Jimmy Carter when he was campaigning on a college campus. I contributed, volunteered, and worked actively for Democrats since the early 70's. I just worked to get some students to register at a meeting celebrating Title IX on a college campus a couple weeks ago. It's not "my campaign", but I have to say that Hillary is the best Democratic candidate for 2016.
The facts are that since Vietnam, most young people have not turned out in proportions equivalent to older voters. The Baby Boomers (I'm one) vote in much greater numbers. I wish more young people had voted in 2000 and 2004 for sure!
I am an elected union officer, an educator, and I don't "suppress" anything. In fact, I know very few people who do more to encourage young people to register and vote than me. I'd like to see "automatic" voter registration as Hillary has suggested.
You can attack me personally all you want, but it doesn't change the facts. Young people don't seem very motivated right now. We'll see what happens in 2016.
In the Sunbelt - young immigrants prefer Hillary. Union analysis favors Hillary's proposals. For young people, women often favor Hillary's advocacy for women's rights and salaries.
It's very difficult to tell young people almost every day to "save" for retirement starting early, and go to college to get a good job with a major company; while at the same time telling them their jobs and savings will be gone when Wall Street is torn down and the banks are broken up! It's hard to negotiate public employee benefits and retirement, when Bernie wants to tax that retirement fund to pay tuition that will often go to the already wealthy. Minimum wages don't matter to millions of undocumented people living off the books anyway.
No matter how you look at it, Bernie's plans are simplistic and don't work for young people or senior citizens or the undocumented. That's why he doesn't get much traction for the majority of likely voters. Bernie attacks income inequity, but he doesn't deal with the primary reasons for the problem.
Universal voter registration and a path to citizenship would add millions of young voters - and the majority likely Democrats.