Courting Students, And Hoping They'll Actually Cast Votes

Washington Post ^ | 26 December 2007 | Jose Antonio Vargas and Shailagh Murray

[Racehorse]

Turner is ambivalent about whether he will make it to the Democratic presidential caucuses next month.

"Some people are talking this election to death, but there's plenty of young people who aren't going to caucus," said Turner, . . . "It's not a priority right now. It should be. But, really, it's not."

Many of the presidential candidates have actively courted young voters, sending them text messages, visiting college campuses and launching Web sites that explain the complicated caucus process. The goal is not only to win over these voters but, just as critically, to get the ripe but unreliable group to turn up at caucus sites, perhaps hundreds of miles from their homes.

. . .

Among the Democratic and Republican front-runners, only former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) does not have a specific program to reach out to student voters. Eric Woolson, who is running the campaign's Iowa operation, said, "I don't know if young voters are any different than any other voters."

Huckabee's campaign and the rest are aware, however, that student enthusiasm usually doesn't translate into student votes. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean was a big campus favorite in 2004, but that year, 18-to-24-year-olds amounted to less than 4 percent of Democratic caucusgoers.

. . .

Schmidt noted that [Ron] Paul, in particular, has attracted among students "an incomprehensible amount of passion. I've never seen anything like it before. You hear testimonials that are almost religious. Obama also has generated an amazing amount of student involvement. Clinton has the most enthusiasm among young women that I've ever seen."

. . .

Some of the group's most involved students said they come from Republican families and were coaxed into switching parties by Obama's candidacy.

[Racehorse]

"Ripe but unreliable" is probably a very accurate and overly kind description of the political strength of potential student voters.

[End Times Sentinel]

Many of the presidential candidates have actively courted young voters, sending them text messages

"Oh, a text. I hope it's that Esmerelda chick I met at the... Barak Obama? He hopes I'm having a killer day..."

[CindyDawg]

There is a very important group of young voters that can determine the election. Our military.

[rabscuttle385]

"Ripe but unreliable" is probably a very accurate and overly kind description of the political strength of potential student voters.

I have voted in every one of the four elections since I turned eighteen, and I do not intend to stop. And, I am a college student. My younger sister, however, exhibits the apathy that is typical of much of my generation: she did not vote in the last election (and didn't care, too).

[KC_Conspirator]

Oh, yet another one of these “young liberal voter” articles. Why just in 2004 they were supposed to carry Dean to victory and then John Kerry with the famous P Diddy “Vote or Die” campaingn. And they never showed up. Hell even P Diddy failed to vote.

[Jabba the Nutt]

Prediction: Even if Obama wins in Iowa, the MSM will play it that Clinton did better than expected. It'll help Clinton that her voters are more likely to caucus, because they're more likely to have caucused before. Get Barf bags ready for the media coverage after Iowa. I prefer the 50 gal bags.

[doodad]

My daughter registered to vote when she got her driver’s license recenty at 17. As she put it, I will be old enough to vote against Hillary in the primary as a Dem, and against any Dem in the general election as a conservative.

Sniff, I am so proud.

[jmaroneps37]

Don’t worry about the “youth vote.” They’ll be there. They always are. Ask president frenchie and former president algore.

[mouser]

This is one of the reasons I feel the pols at this time are less than correct.

We see the most liberal of both party doing the best in pols.