The Youth Vote and Minority Voters

Ever since the 27th amendment passed, every election cycle people have said "the youth vote will make a huge impact in this election." It never has. Young people have consistently voted at much lower rates than older people. Similarly, voter turnout amongst minorities has always been lower than amongst whites, and every year people insist that minorities must turn out to support x candidate.

There is significant data showing that, despite the fact that many American politics experts waived away such a possibility as quadrennial amnesia, there will be a huge turnout amongst minorities and young people this year. Why? Well, Obama is the obvious answer. A secondary answer is that the GOP has screwed things up so bad and economy is tanking so badly that everyone is going to turn out to "vote the bums out". That may be so. But I'd like to delve a little deeper into the Obama explanation.

If turnout amongst minorities and youth is high this year, I think it will be because a candidate is finally running that they can identify with, that they recognize as both in tune to their needs as well as inspiring them to vote. Since 1972, every four years the Democrats have trotted out a candidate that young people are supposed to love. Hunter S. Thompson writes about this in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trial '72, though he too failed to see why young people were not excited by McGovern. In the first chapter, he describes his meeting with two young men who, upon being asked for whom they will vote, shrug and say they probably won't vote at all. Thompson is floored by this, but never truly understands that there's no reason in these kids' minds to vote for McGovern.

Essentially, the Democrats have run candidates that appealed to voters who traditionally show up: middle aged and older white people. Once these candidates are selected, the partisans then show up at colleges and in minority neighborhoods to herald the arrival of a candidate that cares about them. These candidates were picked, and the partisans expect people to line up behind the chosen candidates. When viewed in this way it should be no surprise that young people and minorities are often less excited by such candidates than older white people.

Before Obama, there were three primary candidates that energized youth voters and/or minorities in a way that no general election candidates could: Eugene McCarthy in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and Howard Dean in 2004. RFK and McCarthy are an interesting contrast - McCarthy shook up LBJ in the New Hampshire primaries because of young, anti-war voters. LBJ's poor showing there convinced him to drop out of the race, which caused RFK to join the race to prevent McCarthy from getting the nod. Young whites, minorities, and older whites all loved RFK and flocked to him, leaving McCarthy without the base of youth voters he had used to beat LBJ with. In 2004, Howard Dean had a strong lobby of young activists, but little in the way of minority support and nothing amongst older whites. Obama in 2008 has drawn the same crowds that Dean did in '04, but added minority voters to the mix. Only recently has he picked up older white voters, but he has managed to do so.

In 2004, prominent Democrats said that young people hated Bush, and loved Kerry. They were only half right. Sure young people hated Bush, but lots of young people saw nothing in Kerry. Blacks and hispanics didn't show up for Kerry either; they were told by people that Kerry cared about their interests, but those assurances were merely that - assurances, not givens. In 1992 the media loved the young and brash Clinton-Gore ticket, and Clinton played his saxophone on Aresnio Hall's show to demonstrate how young he was. Black people supposedly loved him too - Toni Morrison and other people designated (often by whites) to speak for Blacks said they all loved him. And because Clinton won, it's easy to imagine that young people and blacks must've shown up in big numbers. But Clinton only garnered 43% of the vote that year. Ross Perot, the conservative third party candidate, took more than 15%. Getting 43% of the vote usually means you've lost by a landslide. Clearly, it wasn't a big turnout by the youth and minorities of America that swept him into power. In the early days of the 2008 primary, politicos dismissed Obama's ability to woo Black voters because, as everyone knew, Black people loved the Clintons.

Time and again we've seen old white men run for president and endured commentators who said those old white men represented the hopes and held the affections of the youth or minorities. And none of them have. Not Humphrey, not McGovern, not Carter, not Mondale, not Dukakis, not Clinton, not Gore, not Kerry. Finally we have Obama, a general election candidate who actually does represent the hopes and hold the affections of the youth and of minorities. And you know what? They chose him, and he's going to win.