Posted on 08/28/2010 11:18:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Ben Anderstone will never forget the energy and optimism he felt surrounding President Obama's election in 2008 — the first year Anderstone could vote.
"In the weeks leading up to the election, my Facebook page was just completely lit up with politics and people debating the various positions on issues," said Anderstone, 20, of Tacoma. "It was an exciting time.
"But this year," he said, "I'm just not seeing that.... Now people are more inclined to talk about how broken and ineffective the system is."
Young voters flexed their political muscle in 2008, helping put Obama in the White House: Exit polls showed Obama drew 66 percent of voters under 30, compared with just 45 percent of voters 65 and older.
The 2008 election also marked the first time since 1992 that a majority of voting-age Americans under 30 turned out, according to the nonpartisan Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).
Getting those young voters back to the polls this year is critical for Democrats' hopes of hanging on to majorities in Congress, particularly in the Senate.
But with the economy struggling, U.S. troops still in Afghanistan and Iraq, domestic issues stalled amid partisan wrangling, and no presidential race at the top of the ballot, that won't be easy.
"It's not that I'm disappointed in Obama, but things haven't really improved much," said David Ruiz, 22, a Capitol Hill resident and University of Washington student.
"I'm sure young voters will rally again to back Obama for a second term (in 2012)," Ruiz said. "But I don't think there's a lot of attention this year."
Democrats have cause for concern: The party in power typically loses congressional seats in a midterm election, and Republicans are working to transform widespread anti-government sentiment into support for their candidates.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Justin Bryant was the president of UW Campus Republicans during the 2008 election and cast his first presidential vote in 2008 for Republican John McCain. He has since become increasingly active in Republican politics and last year was president of University of Washington College Republicans.
The young voters who were suckered into voting Democrat in 2008 can clearly see the damage wrought by the Obama/Reid/Pelosi commie machine. Young high school and college graduates are suffering record unemployment, as are the minorities who were likewise suckered into voting for this communist disaster.
Young people are more likely to learn from their mistakes, especially when the negative effects hit them where it hurts, and hits them quickly, as this communist onslaught has. Those who can't bring themselves to vote for the opposite party will at least avoid showing up to lend further support for their previous disasterous attempt at Hope&Change.
“DUmmie FUnnies is a thread posted here on FR,”
You may note that I am a charter member of DUmmie Funnies.
PJ and I were just ribbing each other :)
yah...well the brainless 18 year old Obamunists from 2008 are now struggling to eat in a dying economy and are awaking to the fact that they make an enormous error, and like many of their fellow citizens before them, will be voting with their pocketbooks this year, or just dropping out all together. There is no way many Obamunists will ever vote for a Republican for any office, and given the increasing problems caused by the Dhimmies, I believe many will sit the midterms out completely.
Definitely our gain.
The college crowd who voted for obama are the real losers - only they don’t know it yet. They will be graduating with student loan debt, no prospects for a decent job, no chance of getting ahead in the near future and a mandatory health insurance payment.
Yep. Zero and the Dems broke it. Unfortunately, we had to pay for it.
My students are NOWHERE as energized (i.e., not at all) as they were in 2008. I began seeing this in 2009, when none of them knew about, or cared about, the stimulus, or health care, or anything other than electing Obama, and once he was in, they did their little liberal duty.
For whatever reason, the proportion of the 16-24 age group that was working or looking for work also dropped this summer to its lowest percentage on record -- 60.6 percent. That was 2.5 percentage points below the rate recorded in Juy 2009 and 17 percentage points below the peak of labor force participation for that age group in July 1989.
About 4.4 million youth were actively searching for work and considered unemployed in July this year. That produced a youth unemployment rate of 19.1 percent, the highest rate on record for the month.
I've taught at the university level for almost 30 years. Most college-age adults are easily persuaded by poor arguments which strike at their emotions, probably because they haven't really thought through the issues carefully. However, once burned, they will turn with vengenence. Obama, being such a dolt, is creating a huge future generation of conservative voters.
“Republican’ts” are sitting on their asses as usual! They will be the next thing to go! Mark my words.
A young person can’t get laid by being excited about a Congressional candidate. It’s that simple.
I teach high school full time and am an adjunct at a community college part-time. I concur with your findings. Young people are often taken in by feel-good rhetoric- a function of lack of experience coupled with a desire to do good. The bad part is that experience is the best teacher, but a harsh one....
I spoke to a college freshman from Marquette last January. Bright girl, raised conservative Republican, works at her father’s dental practice summers and vacations. She said that she doubted her peers would even vote in the midterms and indicated that they were totally disengaged. OTOH, despite her father’s example and advice, she still dreams of medical school.
The students are simply not really capable of seeing ahead. Even adults seem to hang on to the past and believe that everything will be fine because all they have known is prosperity.
An adult liberal emphasized to me that this isn’t the Depression, as there are no soup lines. People just don’t understand that the soup lines are now nationalized with the electronic benefit cards and because the recipients can shop as before, at least for food, the soup lines are hidden from public view.
For other goods, the 2nd hand stores and flea markets are much more crowded.
So I don't know what to think. They are putting up a good half-dozen "mini-mansions" within two miles of us---all $700,000 to $1 million homes. Who'se buying them? If the answer is no one, why are they building them? And it's not foreigners---so where is the money coming from?
I don’t know.
I see similar economic activity in my rural area (no mini-mansions, though). We’re paying a lot more in property taxes and utilities and it will get worse.
I see both deflation of assets and inflation of consumables.
How much activity is credit cards and government-backed loans?
People keep mentioning credit cards, but a) almost all indicators say that Americans are saving more, and b) even credit cards run out.
Sheep complain about broken and ineffective system after voting for wolves to run system.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I'm beginning to think minimum voting age should be 30.
I just don’t know. It does seem to not compute. How much of the government stats can we believe?
I do know for a fact that many of the younger voters do not want laboring jobs. They are demanding and unreliable employees. I hear this from various employers.
Do you have some ideas about what is really happening out there?
I read that when I was a teenager, and agreed with it immediately.
I haven't experienced anything that has caused me to change my mind.
The kids haven’t yet faced true depression, or been in a position where if they don’t get a job they starve. Most can fall back on their parents. I know a 22 year old girl, accounting grad, out of Miami (OH) a great school, on the job market now two years. Now, maybe she won’t move, maybe she’s not at the top of her class-—but not long ago, an accountant out of Miami would have had a job instantly.
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