Reply #42: This is a glass half-empty/half-full kind of thing [View All]

[Mr. Brown of MD]

OK, so it's not entirely like the glass is half-empty or half-full; the two things don't amount to the same. But I think it depends on how you want to look at the situation.

It's not really surprising to learn that the youth vote is not what it could have been, given how Dean has fallen. If people can get excited once, I think they can get excited again, even if it's another man besides Dean. This is just the primaries, and probably not all of those people who supported Dean did much looking into the other candidates. Sucks, but OK - that's how it is, let's figure out what to do about it rather than sneer at people who feel that way. That's only going to turn them off more.

If even 10% of the new, young, Dean supporters remain Dem all the way through to November, that's a chunk I'd happily take. And it's a chunk that we would not have in our corner if not for Dean and his campaign and all of his young supporters. I don't know exactly how many new people one can claim he brought in, but if he brought in 500,000 and we are sure to keep at least 50,000 of those, that's fine with me. If the number is greater, or the percentage, even better.

I'd really like to see the eventual nominee reach out to young voters the way that Dean did. I think all of the other three front-runners have the capability to excite young people who usually don't pay much attention to the political process. Trust me, there's no love for Bush among these people - we just need to make them believe that things are really going to change if a Dem gets in the White House, enough that they want to go vote. Otherwise we're just going to see this cycle of "young people don't vote, so candidates ignore young people, so young people don't vote" ad nauseum. If that continues, our job is that much harder.

We've got some lemons. Let's make some lemonade, put up a sign by the road, and see who stops by.

-CollegeDude
Who thinks a good majority of young voters are ABB without knowing it