Brooks Gregory commenting today on a little noticed trend, which will have some serious implicaitons come 11/04:
The Democrats are in such disaray and so financially strapped they can only afford to garner attention by making news. And, as we all know, only bad things make the news, and again as most of us know, if there are no bad things, make some. This is what is currently going on with the Democrats and as a result of their financial condition, they can not go after the most prominent up and coming voting block, young voters in the 18 to 24 demographic. Thus the study.
In the 2004 cycle:
The youth vote will comprise 14.4% of the voting age demographic.
42% of that demographic will vote.
4 different methods of “GOV” were used to determine the possible outcomes on the 2004 cycle.
Method 1 failed to increase voter turnout,
method 2 increased it by 5.1%,
method 3 resulted in the highest, 5.6%, voter turnout increase and
method 4 only produced a .05% increase.
The problem. The methods producing the best voter turnout are the most expense intense of all and without the resources, the Democrats do not have a chance.
But, even looming larger than any of the nuts and bolts of campaigning and GOV activities, is this very telling statistic. By a margin of 75%, young people perceive candidates (actually the query was framed using the word “Americans”) that speak out against their government to be “Un-patriotic” nd would not consider them in a determination of their vote. This is a very big item.
When taken in relation to the 2000 election, where, depending on which number you choose to accept, the President of the United States was elected by less than 500 votes. Are you beginning to understand how valuable a GOV effort resulting in a 5% increase in turnout would be?
Somebody does. The Republicans have thus far registered over 550,000 new (NEW) voters in the 18 to 24 Demographic. The Democrats? They have not made an effort as they are relying on local organizations to hopefully pick up the slack and pray for some overlap.
Here is a quote from Veronica DeLaGarza, the Executive Director of Youth Vote, the organization sending out the results of these studies to political consultants nationwide.
“Young voters will play a large role in the 2004 elections. With the elections being so close, I definitely think that youth are the swing vote in 2004.”
I have heard remarks similar to this in every election cycle, but this time, I think I’ll bet that she is right on the money. Why? Because young people think candidates speaking out against their government is “Un-patriotic”, and if 75% of them think that and all the Democratic candidates are able to do is make news by being “Un-patriotic”, they have lost before they even find a contender.