May 19, 2008
John McCain Has Pledged to Contest the Youth Vote, Which Heavily Favors Democrats
John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has a lot of ground to make up if he is serious about his stated plan to “contest every vote of every young American,” according to Politico.
Senator McCain has proposed few youth-oriented plans, the story said, at the same time young voters tend to favor his Democratic rivals’ positions on such topics as the economy and the Iraq war. In addition, the Democrats “have pumped out detailed policy papers on other issues of top concern to the under-30 set, including education and national service,” Politico noted.
The chairwoman of the Young Republican National Federation told the political Web site that Senator McCain’s campaign would begin to release a “flood” of policy proposals once the Democratic primary contest ends and the general-election campaign begins in earnest.
Recent polling, though, suggests that Senator McCain faces an uphill battle with young voters, the story said, with most of the results showing him trailing his Democratic rivals. An April 21 MTV survey of 18- to 29-year-old voters, for example, showed Barack Obama beating Senator McCain 52 percent to 39 percent, while Hillary Rodham Clinton led Senator McCain 51 percent to 41 percent. An April 25 survey by the Harvard Institute of Politics showed Senator Obama beating Senator McCain among 18- to 24-year-olds 50 percent to 29 percent; Senator Clinton beat Senator McCain 41 percent to 34 percent with the same age group.
Sara Hebel | Posted on Monday May 19, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Democrats have the youth vote because one must lack experience to buy their “change for the sake of change” or “I want to be the first female emperor of the world” messages.
They will also sit through those intro philosophy courses without arguing—the propensity to do both are likely the result of the same naivite. Wait until they hit their 30s and magically find their thoughts are quite conservative. Funny how having a family and responsibilities will do that.
— Susan Stamleyson May 19, 02:53 PM #
Interesting stance, Susan. I found that having family responsibilities made me more inclined to favor inclusive, social-justice-based policies, not the other way around.
— barbara May 19, 04:15 PM #
Or democrats have the youth vote because young people are less likely to be racist, sexist, and homophobic.
Students don’t sit through intro Philosophy without arguing. If they’re your students you must be teaching the course poorly if there is no participation and discussion.
I think the reason people sometimes become conservative when they get older is financial. When you’re young and poor, you don’t mind big taxes. But when it comes out of your fat paycheck once you have a real job and a real family to support, you want no more taxes.
— Patricia May 19, 04:22 PM #
Well in a dangerous world anyone who has concerns about the economy or our security would not want a totally inexperienced persons as president no matter how glib he might happen to be. I have met a lot of glib people on college campuses and few of them were able to be good department chairs much less president of the world’s largest superpower. Go home Barak and learn to clean up your room…ask Michelle what that means.
— Frank Mitchell May 19, 04:24 PM #
Madman McCain. What a loser. Republicanism is for losers. Look how they’ve ruined the country while they engorged themselves on our treasury. You really want four more years of that?????
— original marcii May 19, 04:27 PM #
McCain (Bush Lite) can cut and paste and recalibrate his policy positions all he wants (we’ve certainly become accustomed to his doing that by now!), but it will not help him with the youth vote. Young people will be repelled by his having voted against a national holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition they will not be impressed by his opposition to a woman’s right to choose, or by the fact that the Children’s Defense Fund rated him the worst member of the Senate for children. They probably will recoil at the knowledge that McCain’s campaign has been stuffed with fat lobbyists who represent the very interests McCain purports to checkmate, including foreign countries, and such tyrants as Marcos, Mobutu and Savimbi. I don’t think young voters will be encouraged by some of McCain’s fellow Republican senators saying he is too reckless to be commander in chief. I think when they learn the stories of the now infamous McCain temper, the young voters might have second thoughts about supporting him. And when young voters note that McCain begged for and received the endorsement of “Rev” John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment of New Orleans for sin, and who calls the Catholic Church the “Antichrist,” and a “false cult,” they surely will have a difficult time supporting McCain for President. Finally, when young voters learn that McCain’s “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, they might wonder whether a vote for McCain is a vote to continue the ideological, dangerous, and unsuccessful foreign policy of George W. Bush.
If young people do vote for John McCain, they will deserve the legacy George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress have concocted for them.
— /case hardened May 19, 05:18 PM #
It is sad that this nation has nobody to choose from except those three marginals.
— Mark de Goz May 19, 06:25 PM #
Vote for experience, for maturity, for McCain. To squander your vote on the democrats is to invite an inflationary period the likes of which this country hasn’t seen since the end of WWII. If Obama gets in, the federall largesse will break all pork records and then some. Elect McCain and help usher in a modicum of sane spending.
— marci May 22, 02:28 PM #