It seemed peculiar that this largely unegaged Millennial Generation was said to be so politically involved that they broke with the reality of young people being primarily and almost exclusively concerned with starting careers and families and becoming adults.
I recall reading research after the election that demonstrated young people in fact did not participate any more than usual, but the reporting of an army of politically charged youth had already taken hold.

1. Although there are indeed those who have touted the left-leaning youth vote as a game-changer for the foreseeable future, most of us from the center-left to further over have not.

2. Prof. Bauerlein, a famous English professor adept with language, is very good at implying things he can later plausibly deny implying. What he's doing here is not simply relaying a "sober warning" in order to help out those who've touted the left-leaning youth, but rather saying, in effect, "Obama was just a fluke put into office by a novelty-seeking youth vote that's since disappeared."

3. The Democratic candidate for Governor in Virginia was ran a particularly bad campaign and was particularly ignored by the White House. He was hardly someone to "energize" (to use the Palinistas' favorite word) the left-leaning youth vote.

4. In New Jersey, Corzine did get White House support, but he was in big trouble from the beginning and his embrace of Obama was accurately seen as a last-minute desperate move.

5. Some tea leaves can be read in the opposite direction. In a feature Congressional race in a district in upstate New York somewhat known for its conservatisim, conservatives forced the too-liberal Republican candidate to quit the race. Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty (both potential contenders for the 2012 GOP nomination) threw their clout behind the conservative candidate. And what happened? The Democrat won. I suppose that means this result offers a sober warning people who have made the Beck-Limbaugh-Joe-the-Plumber bloc into a hyper-civically-engaged, heavy-voting, conservative-leaning age cohort.

6. This post is yet another example of Prof. Bauerlein's tendency, pointed out by Willynilly on other threads, to draw large conclusions from small amounts of data. Doubtless Prof. Bauerlein will protest that he's just being fair and balanced, just reporting and letting us decide, just carrying water for that impeccably unbiased fount of political wisdom, The Wall Street Journal. Right.

He drew no large conclusions but simply stated the obvious. Young people do not vote in large numbers. Obama's candidacy created a lot of enthusiasm for youth who turned out in larger numbers than usual. We have now returned to normal. This does not mean Obama "was a fluke" but was an exception.

I also expect that once the Pat Robertson-esque tendency of Virginia's new governor (and, even more so, its new attorney general) begin to manifest themselves, that state's voters will suffer a fairly strong case of buyer's remorse. (That said, Creigh Deeds was an awful candidate who ran an awful campaign.)

Campaigns that do nothing to engage the popular imagination of why politics matter (and their candidate in particular) perhaps deserve only 10% of the youth vote. To care, people have to be motivated to do so. And yeah, naysayers can sit from on-high and run on about responsibility and duty, but the bottom line is that almost any action in contemporary American society needs priming and motivation. Otherwise, we are left with what is seemingly a choice between a douche and a turd sandwich (as our friends at South Park put it).

I refer everyone to Gail Collins' column, "Hark! The Voters Speak!" in the New York Times (not sure what date, it is online). Basically, she argues that reasons that voters didn't vote for Democrats in Virginia or New Jersey include the Virginia candidates' lack of charisma and the Democrats' deep history of corruption in New Jersey--not because voters were sending a "message" that they were fed up with liberal ideologues and/or disgusted with both parties, as the WSJ reports. I agree with Collins--these elections are too limited to be interpreted as evidence of a larger cultural/political shift.

My very negative view of Mark Bauerlein's right wing nut-ball style of reporting has broadened considerably. Previously I thought that he was simply receiving previously subscribed right wing publications, articles, stories, etc. and then trying to interpret them to have a greater right wing propaganda impact then even the original author/s/ envisioned. However, Bauerleins' interpretations are so fumbling and bumbling, so as to instantly expose, to any discerning reader, his deep bias towards right wing spin at all cost. He actually seems so dull as to not realize that he is providing unintended transparency to his clumsy scheme. Now, another element has become clear. Bauerlein actually spends his time - which otherwise should be devoted to his students at Emory - actively searching for right wing articles that have already been spun inacurately, so that he can attemp, albeit awkwardly, to apply a second degree of far right spin. There is never any effort by Bauerlein to examine the entire picture. This fact is aptly pointed out by goxewu, in Post #2 above. The election result, which occurred in upstate New York, referenced by goxewu, was widly circulated, appeared on the wire service and was reported broadly, along with the Virginia and New Jersey outcomes. Actually, all three of these election reports were covered in media outlets that Bauerlein would refer to as left wing instruments. Bauerlein too, had the opportunity to illustrate all three of these election races so as to demonstrate an effort at balance. He did not. That tells Chronicle readers all they need to know about his motives. In reality, the New York result would have totally marginized the right wing points Bauerlein was trying to score - ergo he consciously decided not to provide the reader with all the relevant facts necessary to reach a truly informed conclusion. Bauerlein would be the first to scream about left leaning professors at work in America's higher education system. But who among us is foolish enough to believe that Bauerlein walks into his classroom at Emory and does not follow the same practice that he attempts to impose on Chronicle readers each time he publishes an item. I say this again to the managemet of The Chronicle. If I wanted to read partisan political postering and political spin articles, I would not be subscribing to The Chronicle for that purpose. I am a subscriber because I served Higher Education for Twenty-Five years. I want to read about the process of teaching and learning and all that is related to that process. I do not want to be exposed to the silly amateur-like partisan political manipulation that is offered by Mark Bauerlein. It actually devalues the Chronicle and I am surprised its management does not recognize that fact. If the Chronicle insists on continuing this type of coverage, I would suggest that it dump Bauerlein and add Rush Limbaugh to its writing staff. At least Rush will provide comic relief to the reader.

First, let me distance myself a little from Willynilly. Although he or she was among the first to point out Prof. Bauerlein's predilection for seeing a smoking match on the sidewalk and declaring the entire city to be burning down, I can't go along with much of Willynilly's comment above. Prof. Bauerlein isn't a "right wing nut-ball," he's merely ivory-tower naive about the general nastiness of the American political right. He almost certainly doesn't preach politics--express or implied in the classroom; he most likely exhorts his students to keep reading Hamlin Garland and John Gardner on rapidly oxidizing paper pages. He doesn't devalue the Chronicle with his political posts anymore than, say, Profs. Bousquet, Fendrich, Jackson or Mr. Carey do with theirs; he's just a part of an embattled minority that tends to flail a bit in order to exculpate the American political right from its misdeeds.

Having said that, I wish to correct mdanieltex who said in #3 that Prof. Bauerlein "drew no large conclusions." In his OP, Prof. Bauerlein said right at the top, "One paragraph offers a sober warning to people who have made the Millenial Generation into a hyper-civically-engaged, heavy-voting, liberal-learning, age cohort. That the paragraph "offers a sober warning" IS a "large conclusion," Homey.

I'm probably just projecting my own feelings on the rest of the electorate (a la Pauline Kael's famous "Nobody I know voted for Nixon"), but it seems to me, from talking to a variety of people of various ages, genders, and social/political/economic strata, that many if not most American voters are disgusted with Washington and with Wall Street. The corruption, greed, selfishness, and general schweinerei are just too damned obvious to be ignored, no matter how hard we try. The two main branches of the single American political party are equally albeit somewhat differently nauseating. The executive, legislative, and judiciary are united in gangraping the Constitution.

willynilly - " I do not want to be exposed to the silly amateur-like partisan political manipulation that is offered by Mark Bauerlein." Typical left-winger. . . God forbid that you have to hear more than one side of an issue. Hopefully you don't foist that philosophy off onto your students - they deserve to hear all sides of any debate.

goxewu - "In a feature Congressional race in a district in upstate New York somewhat known for its conservatisim, conservatives forced the too-liberal Republican candidate to quit the race. Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty (both potential contenders for the 2012 GOP nomination) threw their clout behind the conservative candidate. And what happened? The Democrat won."
Let's be clear. In NY23, the original Republican candidate was not picked in a primary, but in the proverbial smoke-filled back room. She was no moderate. . . she was more liberal, both socially and fiscally, that her Democratic opponent. . .she was nothing more than a shill. When the Conservative candidate surfaced and Scozzafava's views became more widely known, rank and file Republicans started deserting her candidacy. When she resigned from the race, within 24 hours she endorsed the Democrat - an action which pretty well confirms that she wasn't much of a Republican. Her name remained on the ballot and she got 5% of the vote. Add Hoffman's numbers to those who voted Republican and you've got more than 50%. Let's see what happens next year when Hoffman runs a full race as a Republican. . . I've got a feeling that Owens might want to rent rather than buy when he goes to DC.

Don't delude yourselves. . . thanks to Barry, Harry, and Nancy, there's gonna be bloodbath at the polls next year. Why? The Democrats won because people were fed up with Bush, not because the American people suddenly decided that they preferred a Marxian worker's paradise. I've read that some liberals are telling themselves that had they actually passed Hillary Care in 1993, they wouldn't have gotten clobbered at the polls. No THAT is delusionary! As long as Barry keeps pushing Obamacare and things like Cap and Tax, the Dems are doomed in 2010. Thank God!

jpjones makes the salient observation about youth voting:

"Campaigns that do nothing to engage the popular imagination of why politics matter (and their candidate in particular) perhaps deserve only 10% of the youth vote. To care, people have to be motivated to do so. And yeah, naysayers can sit from on-high and run on about responsibility and duty, but the bottom line is that almost any action in contemporary American society needs priming and motivation."

Yes, and the "priming" has to come from home and schools. To insist upon the "duty" of citizenship isn't to be a "naysayer," but to remind young people that a free country requires a vigilant and informed citizenry--particularly one that votes in large numbers. This is why the oft-discussed "youth inspiration factor" of 2008 was no guarantee of consistent voting habits. Inspirations come and go, but the duty should be abiding.

Scozzafava was the Republican candidate, perhaps picked in a smoke-filled room, but the smoke-filled room as filled entirely with Republicans, not a Democrat in sight. When she withdrew and endorsed her Democratic opponent, it was as much to protest the conservatives boycotting her campaign because the conservative candidate wasn't chosen in the smoke-filled room as it was becasue she agreed with the Democratic candidate. And when Mr. Hoffman, the conservative, lost in spite of the campaigning by conservative heavyweights Palin and Pawlenty, there were tea leaves in the bottom of the cup for Prof. Bauerlein to read. But one swallow does not a summer make, either in Virginia, where the Democratic candidate was particularly bad, or in upstate New York. Which was my point.

And let's be clear about another thing: When somebody prefaces comment with "let's be clear" (or the more common "clearly"), it's a signal that things are not very clear. And when the commenter uses epithets such as "shill" and calls Obama "Barry," let's be clear that we're not reading something written on the high road. (I make livefreeordie2 a present of the deliberate paradox opening this paragraph.)

Finally, re Prof. Bauerlein's "inspirations come and go, but the duty should be abiding." That sounds lofty; indeed, it sounds like some baritone voiceover from one of those godawful civics class films I saw in junior high school. No scientific survey evidence, here, but I'll bet that 90 percent of voters vote either because they're inspired by a particular candidate, frightened by another, or perceive they've a vested interest in something concrete (jobs, taxes, regulations, etc.) at stake in the election. Those whose primary reason for voting is "duty" are one out of ten at best.

In the primaries in New York City, where, on the Democratic side the only thing at stake was who would be thrown in front of the Bloomberg bus,* and on the Republican side virtually nothing, the turnout with no big "youth vote" percentage in the electorate, was miniscule. So much for "duty."

*And still, in the general election a Republican mayor who spent a stupefying $85-100 million of his own money on his campaign beat a financially undernourished and uninspiring Democrat by a surprisingly measley four percentage points. Tea leaves, anyone?

As a member of the generation Prof. Bauerlein regards as both dumb and apathetic, please take my comments for whatever you think they're worth. You will recall the old idiom, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." You know, the one former President Bush famously mangled? President Obama and the Democratic Party took advantage of the enthusiasm of which my generation is occasionally capable, drawing us to his campaign with inspiring rhetoric and a promise that this time things were going to be different. Once he became president, he said, we would see major changes in Washington. We volunteered, voted, and eagerly awaited the results. And now many of us have come to realize that we've been fooled. Nothing has actually changed, and in fact in some cases things have gotten worse. So why allow ourselves to be fooled again? Many members of my generation haven't necessarily lost our enthusiasm, we're just directing it toward different ends, the ambitious ones any way. True, some youthful supporters still labor to get their candidate/s of choice elected. But they're not so different from the sad sports fan who supports his favorite team year after year, despite the fact its owner cares less about fostering a winning franchise than making a profit off the die-hard fans who will continue to attend games no matter the futility or cost. In the parlance of my generation, we got 'played'. Fine. Many of us have learned our lesson and we're not going to hate the playa so much as hate the game, where the best expression of our hatred (or disgust, as dank48 prefers) is to not involve ourselves. So yeah, you can expect young voters to stay away from the polls. We'd be fools to come back.

goxewu,

I heard a columnist from the Village Voice peg the voter turnout in NYC at around twenty-five percent. I only hope we could see those kinds of numbers nationwide. So much for a 'mandate'.

I'm usually a defender of please's generation against sleazy, notice-my-book-on-the-shelf titles such as Prof. Bauerlein's tabloid "The Dumbest Generation." (Not that a "generation" is something to attack or defend, however; it's merely a bunch of people born over a certain period of time, which is then labeled for journalistic convenience as "The Lost Generation," "The Silent Generation," "Baby Boomers," "Generation X," and whatnot.) But if please's whine in comment #13 is any indication, perhaps I ought to revise my attitude.

In the parlance of please's generation, they "got 'played'" by the Obama campaign. "Played," now, implies being swindled, and swindled implies buying something that turned out to be defective or fradulent, and that implies, (in the parlance of please's generation), dude, politics as shopping or, worse, child support. Which is to say that Mommy and Daddy promised please and his or her contemporaries that if they worked for and voted for Obama everything would turn out all right and it hasn't, so please and his or her contemporaries are never again going to believe anything that Mommy or Daddy promises.

One gathers from between the lines in #13 that the complaint about Obama is that he hasn't gone far enough to the left: he hasn't given us single-payer health care, he hasn't stopped bankers from making multimillion-dollar bonuses in a severe recession, he hasn't abruptly and totally ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he hasn't rescinded "don't ask, don't tell," and he hasn't reduced unemployment. But, please should remember: Obama wasn't elected dictator or commissar; he was elected by only six percentage points in the midst of an economic meltdown; nearly half of the country is thick enough to have seen Sarah Palin as a viable Vice-President or even President and those voters are still around; the big-tent Democratic Party is not all Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi and a lot of "blue dog" Democrats (such as the 39 who voted against even the watered-down health care bill) might as well be Republicans. In other words, this country is still a democracy and democracies are not usually fertile ground for the total enactment of one person's vision. If one wants (as I do) a further-left direction in this country, it's necessary to be realistic about what Obama can or cannot do (e.g., declare by executive order a single-payer health care system, or decimate by edict the compensation for bankers in a capitalist country), and then--no other choice--get back to working NOW for 2010 and 2012, instead of waiting for the results a year and three from today and whining again when they aren't quite what Mommy and Daddy promised.

please's sports-fan analogy is unintentionally instructive. A sports fan is, again, merely a shopper--for entertainment. The fan doesn't own any shares of the team (except in Green Bay), doesn't scout players, doesn't try to recruit them, doesn't participate in draft day, doesn't help decide lineups, doesn't call plays, etc., etc. The fan merely buys tickets or, much more commonly, doesn't even do that but instead watches the games for free on TV, where his or her contribution to the team is infinitesimal and indirect: buying some of the beer and chips whose advertising pays for the telecasts. The fan then complains when things don't go right with the team and, after a few seasons, starts to think he or she deserves something--sympathy or respect--for merely rooting for the team during the down times. If please equates his or her political participation to the fan's in sports, then please is condemning his or her generation right there.

In the parlance of please's generation: Get over it.

Note on voter turnouts: People who don't vote are not saying nothing. They're saying, in effect, "We don't really care enough to get off our asses and go to the polls. You guys who do care take care of it for us. We give your our proxies." So, in a perverse way, a 25 percent turnout can indeed deliver a mandate. In Bloomberg's case it didn't because Bloomberg outspent his opponent a zillion to one, was the incumbant, and still won by only four percentage points.

Sorry, one more thing:

In the blink of an eye, please and his or her generation WILL BE Mommy and Daddy offering child-support politics to a subsequent youthful generation. If the "I was played and I'm pissed off, so I'm going to opt out of politics" continues with please and friends until that moment, things are only going to be WORSE for that younger generation than they are now. In short, the consequences of the political abdication that please and friends sow right now, when their noses are out of joint, they will reap in 2028.

If please thinks wisdom and guidance is to be found in aphorisms, Burke's account of how evil triumphs is worth considering as an alternative-- However "foolish" it might be to be civicly engaged enough to vote, the alternative is far, far worse.