"The youth did not let the Democrats down"
The math shows that the youth vote is why Kerry was even in the game. But why did he still lose? Well, the Democratic Party needs to reflect on that.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6400116/Well, it turns out that young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 actually did increase their numbers by at least 1.5 million in yesterday’s election over turnout in 2000. But beyond just the increase in turnout, they also voted more Democratic this year than last. In 2000, this age group was split evenly between casting votes for Al Gore or George Bush— but this year went decisively for John Kerry.
The problem starts with voters between the ages of 30 to 44 which is the only group to actually decline in numbers between the 2000 and 2004 elections— a whopping drop of nearly 3 million in yesterday’s election. So where did that 9 million vote increase come from? Two groups— 45 to 59 years olds grew by 4.8 million this time around, and those over 60 grew by 4.2 million. It may just be one of those artifacts in a spreadsheet loaded with statistics, but those over 45 years of age increased their turnout by exactly 9 million in 2004.
So here is the stunning fact that Brian Williams' report pointed me to last night: Because young voters increased their numbers by 1.5 million voters this year (over 19 million of them voted yesterday), and because they sided with Kerry by at least a 10 point margin this year instead of splitting evenly between Gore and Bush as they did in 2000, they on their own added 1.7 million votes to John Kerry’s column last night.
Which gets to the really stunning thing about all this: It turns out that throughout the 2004 there were three forces at work. The organized Republican Party, the organized Democratic Party, and the unofficial unorganized Democratic Party fueled in the main by the passion of youth.
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