Obama's Secret Weapon: The Young Adults

Akindele Unleashed ^ | 2/20/08 | Akindele F. Akinyemi

[vrwc54]

Once again, Senator Barack Obama has won in Wisconsin and Hawaii to push his win streak to 10. Once again, his secret weapon behind all of this that we are not paying attention to are the young people who are voting for him.

Republicans can no longer ignore the fact that this man may be the actual nominee for the Democratic Party. If Sen. Hillary Clinton split with Obama on March 4th between Texas and Ohio she is most likely finished.

Republicans also have to realize that the youth vote has fueled Obama's message with Hollywood, Oprah and Will.i.am. To be honest I have never seen such a youth movement on the Democratic side before. My conservative comrades keep telling me that its all emotional. I keep telling them to come better because we have not done a damn thing to swing young people to vote Republican.

For real, Sen. John McCain is the frontrunner for the GOP. If it comes down to voting for Obama and McCain Obama will make history. I thought a couple of days ago that McCain would beat Obama but looking at the voting trend right now there is no way in hell a 71 year old man will beat a 46 year old man. There is no excitement in the GOP for that we are STILL divided in this party over who is more conservative and who is not. Young people in the GOP are not united and will not vote for McCain in November. This spells doom for the GOP.

Young people are a factor in the political process. While fellow conservatives are talking about how our young people are falling for the okey doke from Obama we are over here attacking his character. For example, I have heard repeatedly from hardcore conservatives that he was (or still is) a Muslim. I thought America was the land of opportunity and progress. Are we in the business of discrimination on this side of the aisle? And I cannot understand how ANY Black conservative would fall for this trick when we know how Black Churches inour community have repeatedly failed our community. Again, when I look at Blacks practicing Islam, African Spirituality or even Judaism Black families tend to stay together. Until Black conservatives show me a sound example of how the Christian church in large urban areas have helped transformed our community we should not even waste our time talking about Christian vs. Muslim. It is the dumbest arugument I have ever heard. If we are that paranoid of Obama then you have no working knowledge of real clear politics.

And why are conservatives attacking this man's wife? He is demonstrating family in this campaign. He is not banging his women on his staff like Mayor Kilpatrick here in Detroit. There is some integrity here and for his wife to be there every step of the way is great. Can we say the same here? I have no wife and I am running for a federal office and with everyone attacking me I would like to have a rock to lean on myself.

Young people are fueling this Obama movement. We cannot take that away from Obama. America are seeking a new first family and this time they are Black folks. I thought Clinton would have wrapped this up a while ago but the trend has drastically changed. Young voters do make a difference and with McCain running on fumes in this race against the Democratic Party we are in serious trouble.

Obama has created an overall surge in Democratic participation — but while overall Democratic turnout jumped 90%, the number of young Democrats participating soared 135%.

A lot of fresh faces are always in those audiences, and many of them left wearing one of his extremely cool t-shirts. But Obama applied lessons learned — re-learned — in recent years about the importance of face-to-face grassroots organizing.

After decades of relying on phone banks and mass-mailings to motivate voters, Republicans began experimenting in 2001, comparing face-to-face contacts to the other methods. They found that having a trusted neighbor or peer make the personal appeal is a far more effective way to get voters to the polls. Obama has keyed into that and built his campus organizations. It's really a return to the way we used to organize in the 19th century heyday of political machines.

In other words he is using our tactics against us.

Moreover, Obama's appeal to young voters fits seamlessly into his larger campaign themes of change and renewal. What does McCain has to offer? The man is a walking corpse for Christsake.

We had Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee to pick from. We wanted Giulani, Romney and McCain. We fell for the divide and conquer crap and now we are stuck with McOld to go up agianst the Democrats. Obama is trying to include everyone across the board with his baseless speeches.

While I cannot support Obama because of his positions ( he is way too liberal for me) I must admit that he has engaged the youth in voting. That is a good thing for America regardless of political party or position. Now those who understand the game must take those same young people and teach them the facts without emotion to help them understand that logical voting, not emotional speeches, is what makes America great.

[palmer]

Obama has created an overall surge in Democratic participation -- but while overall Democratic turnout jumped 90%, the number of young Democrats participating soared 135%.

The author needs to dig deeper. I voted D in Virginia and Obama over the beast. The beast will win anyway, she will steal it. Furthermore there are bunches of 17 year olds I know in VA (who will be 18 in Nov) who registered D and voted against the beast. They all had but one task right now and that was to vote against the beast. Come November though, it remains to be seen if McCain can pull them back in, but if we somehow luck out and get Obama on the D side, he will fizzle.

[palmer]

Hopefully I explained it somewhat in my previous post.

[torchthemummy]

In a Washington Post editorial during January, 2007 the question of his middle-name was put to rest. They wrote that anyone who used his middle-name was a racist. Case closed. That's why I refer to Obama as B?O.

How about Barack X or BXO...because his middle name was stolen by Sadaam.

[reformedliberal]

Could you give some specifics as to these *entitlements*?

I am 65, female, self-employed for over 43 years and my SS is paltry, I have no *entitlements* that I didn’t pay for and continue to pay for. I have employed people on disability and welfare in the past and from what I could see, their *entitlements* were so small as to be laughable. Certainly, no one could live on them unless somehow they had cash assets that escaped the scrutiny of the welfare system, which even seems to consider a whole life insurance policy an asset because it can be borrowed against.

I have been politically active on both sides of the political divide up until this year and I have never even heard of an entitlement which I could vote for myself.

I am very serious in these questions. It almost sounds like there is some parallel system out there that it secret, at least to me, my husband and those I have queried about this since reading your post, which includes one veteran. He told me that because he does not have a service-related disability and didn’t serve for 20 years, he isn’t even eligible for VA medical care.

Are any of these over-70 vets conservative or even Republican?

[ought-six]

“Could you give some specifics as to these ‘entitlements’?”

First off, voting for them — or for the politician who promised them — is one thing; having Congress pass them is another.

But, too answer your question, here are just a few:

Medicare
Medicaid
Social Security
Tax breaks (check out some tax forms: Do you see the boxes that ask if you are 65 or older? That is so a tax break or credit can be given)
Senior discounts on pretty much everything (granted, some of those are not laws, but pro-senior lawmakers encourage them).

Yes, most seniors have paid into the Social Security programs. But what they receive in Social Security benefits is so out of proportion to what they’ve paid into it that their rate of return is astronomical. No one else gets such a windfall from an “investment”.

I’m 57. I am eligible to join AARP, but I refuse to do so because AARP is one of the biggest shake-down organizations around. I feel bad for those who are in their 20s and 30s now, because they are being fleeced to pay for the entitlement programs going to today’s seniors. There are seniors today who have paid next to nothing into Social Security but who are getting maximium benefits, and are constantly demanding that those benefits be increased.

I have paid into Social Security programs a sum well into the six figures. I will never get that back. However, an octagenarian who had paid into Social Security programs a fraction of what I have is raking in the cash, proportionately.

For Social Security to be fair, it should only pay out in a reasonable proportion to what one paid into it, and everyone gets the same proportionate return.

Most seniors today, no matter what their political philosophies were when they were younger and productive, are now eager socialists. That’s why seniors disproportionately vote for Democrats.

Many years ago I accepted the likelihood that what I paid into Social Security is gone, and I’ll never see it. That’s why I did what I could to prepare for my retirement on my own. Thus, Social Security isn’t even factored into my retirement equation.

To answer your question about the many veterans over age 65 that I know: Yes, they are overwhelmingly Democrats now. But, most of them voted for Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Reagan when they were working and productive (we’ve had many a discussion about this over a cold beer). However, when they retired they jumped to the Democrats.

You say you are 65 and are self-employed, but that your SS is paltry. Your SS is “paltry” because you’re still working and bringing in an income.

[reformedliberal]

I have one 90-year-old parent left. She complains constantly at having to pay her health insurance premiums. Her SS isn’t a lot as she was a niche baby. When my father passed, she was astonished that her portion of his government pension dropped. And yes, it is tiresome to hear that having survived The Depression or been drafted into the military for WWII entitles anyone to take more than they gave, but I guess I see it as the luck of the draw. Our children will read about “the last WWII veteran” just as we read about the “last WWI veteran.”

So, while I understand now what the oldsters are bragging on, since they didn’t pay a lot in the early years of the program, they are, IMO, simply bragging on very little. I hope when I am really old I can find other things to take comfort from rather than how I am getting something from the government.

Yes, there is a deduction for being over 65 and most states have a property tax deduction for seniors, as well.

I think the various discounts are simply marketing, not a voting issue and I also ignore AARP. They simply are a lobbying organization that uses the discounts for marketing. They are tiny discounts, too and most are also available with AAA or other insurance programs.

I also think it would be political suicide for any politician
to cut SS. We vote. When they finally succeed in bringing in universal health insurance, I am resigned to being told that most procedures will not be available for anyone over 80, who smokes, is overweight, etc. Or the waits will be increased until we die off from late treatment. Will our children lobby for us to live out our natural lives with advanced health care? Some will, of course. Many will help their parents. Many will be unable to. OTOH, at this time, I see folks in their 80s on Medicaid getting state of the art health care that ranges into the millions of dollars, so I don’t know what will actually happen.

I do understand how this could get under your skin. I just tell myself that life isn’t fair. You cannot fight something most people see as a major benefit.

I am very pessimistic about our country right now. However, we have survived some awful political times and I just pray we will survive this era and keep our freedoms. They mean a lot more to me than entitlements.

Thanks for the answers. I get a bit touchy sometimes about all the “greedy geezer” posts. I see dividing us along age lines as the same tactic as dividing us along gender/income/race issues.