| UC Berkeley Students on front cover of TIME MAGAZINE
Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008
The Year of the Youth Vote
By David Von Drehle
Senator Claire McCaskill is the highest-ranking Democrat in Missouri,
and Missouri picks Presidents. The Show-Me State has voted for the
winner in 25 of the past 26 elections. This is why the contenders for
the Democratic presidential nomination fought so hard for McCaskill's
endorsement. As her wary advisers helped her weigh the risks and
rewards of siding with powerful Hillary Clinton or charismatic Barack
Obama, neutrality began to look appealingly safe.
But there's something about an 18-year-old that can't abide careful
hedging and cautious steps. The Senator's daughter Maddie Esposito had
seen the way her mother teared up whenever she heard Obama speak. And
now it was happening again as mother and daughter sat side by side on
the family-room sofa in a suburb of St. Louis, watching the results of
the Iowa caucuses on TV. "You know you believe in him," Maddie
admonished her damp-eyed mother. "It's time to step up." The next
morning, Maddie, a college freshman home for the holidays, added a
threat: "You have to do it, or I'm never talking to you again."
McCaskill endorsed Obama — a big boost in an important Super Tuesday
primary state. And the story of that endorsement is the
Democratic-nomination battle etched in miniature. Kids like Maddie
Esposito are the muscle of Obama's army. His campaign has become the
first in decades — maybe in history — to be carried so far on the backs
of the young. His crushing margin of victory in Iowa came almost
entirely from voters under 25 years old, and as the race moved to New
Hampshire and Nevada, their votes helped him stay competitive. In South
Carolina on Saturday, Jan. 26, Obama's better than 3-to-1 advantage
among under-30 voters more than neutralized Clinton's narrower edge
among over-65s. Now, as the candidates shift to the coast-to-coast,
Dixie-to-Dakota battlefield of Feb. 5, Obama is counting on a wave of
Democrats experiencing their own McCaskill moments, roused to his
banner by the fervent — if sometimes vague — urgings of youth.
Caroline Kennedy's three teenagers began working on her last year.
"They were the first people who made me realize that Barack Obama is
the President we need," the daughter of John F. Kennedy told an
audience in Washington on Jan. 28. Her decision, joined by her uncle
Senator Edward Kennedy, to place her father's mantle on Obama's
shoulders was both a boost to Obama and a rebuke to the Clintons.
Frustrated by feckless Washington, energized by the unscripted,
pundit-baffling freedom of a wide-open race, young people are voting in
numbers rarely seen since the general election of 1972 — the first in
which the voting age was lowered to 18. Obama is both catalyst and
beneficiary. In state after state, he has drawn more young voters than
any of his competitors. For a group of voters with no memory of a time
before Bushes and Clintons, Obama is a fresh face. His opponents
promise to fight, but Obama promises healing. His is the language of
possibility, which is the native tongue of the young. And if he happens
to be light on details — well, what are details but the dull pieces of
disassembled dreams? "I had a friend tell me this was impossible,
quoting all these political-science statistics at me to show that it's
hopeless to try to organize students," says Michelle Stein, 20, media
coordinator for Obama's youth campaign in Missouri. "Now he says, 'You
were right, I was wrong. Where do I sign up?'"
Combining digital-age technology with old-fashioned shoe leather,
the Illinois Senator first rallied Iowa students to cancel Clinton's
cakewalk. While enthusiastic Democrats of all ages produced a 90%
increase in turnout for the first caucuses, the number of young voters
was up half again as much: 135%. The kids preferred Obama over the
next-closest competitor by more than 4 to 1. The youngest slice — the
under-25 set, typically among the most elusive voters in all of
politics — gave Obama a net gain of some 17,000 votes. He won by just
under 20,000.
The excitement that created — a "tidal wave," in the words of Bill
Clinton — nearly drowned the hopes of the former President's wife. But
Hillary Clinton answered with her own organizational prowess, whipping
up huge numbers of working-class, female and older Democrats. Only the
students have kept Obama in contention: in New Hampshire, his edge
among young voters was 3 to 1; in Nevada, it was 2 to 1; and in
Michigan, nearly 50,000 under-30s voted "Uncommitted" because Clinton's
name was the only one on the ballot. In a year of unprecedented levels
of participation by Democrats of all ages, Obama is counting on a
youthquake that reverberates upward. On the short road remaining to
Super Tuesday, the race may come down to this: Will the youthful ranks
of Obama's movement grow virally as the election goes national? And
will a public long trained to follow youthful trends be swept up in the
tide?
The Ground Game
Obama is
tapping into a broad audience of energized young voters hungry for
change, according to a new TIME poll of under-30 Americans. Nearly
three-quarters of the respondents said they feel the country is headed
down the wrong track, with majorities expressing worries about jobs,
affordable health care and the war in Iraq. Their interest in the
election exceeds their interest in celebrity news or sports — 7 of 10
said they are paying attention to the race. Obama is the only candidate
in either party who is viewed favorably by a majority of young people,
and he has half again as much support as his nearest competitor,
Democrat or Republican.
But Obama's support among youth is not just a matter of mood; it is a
product of effort and organization, of finding his supporters and
getting them to the polls. In TIME's national survey, he has a 3-to-2
advantage over Clinton among young voters, but he is doing
significantly better than that in actual balloting, thanks to his
superior ground game.
No other candidate can claim similar success. Turnout has been
lackluster for all Republicans this year. In South Carolina, Obama drew
more under-30 votes than all Republican candidates combined, according
to exit polls. Mike Huckabee does well among conservative Christian
youth, but there is no sign of a surge in their ranks. The young people
marching to Ron Paul's drum are long on passion but short on numbers —
roughly 3,000 in South Carolina, for example, compared with Obama's
estimated 50,000. After gaining strength among voters whose views were
formed in the Reagan years, the G.O.P. has the support of only 1 in 3
young people today, and the party's luster has faded among
independents.
Obama's outreach to students didn't spring from some starry-eyed
principle. It started as a specific element of his early strategy in
Iowa. The first-in-the-nation caucuses allow 17-year-olds to vote if
they are going to turn 18 before the general election, which means most
high school seniors are eligible. To win those kids, Obama did
something unusual in politics: he made them a genuine priority. After
his rallies in towns across the state, he met backstage with student
leaders from the area — a privilege most campaigns reserve for local
VIPs and fund raisers. He also hired as his youth-vote coordinator Hans
Riemer, a veteran of Rock the Vote, which has been working to mobilize
the student vote for years, with increasing success. Riemer extracted a
promise that his work would be an integral part of the overall
campaign, not a lip-serviced, photo-op'ed afterthought. His timing was
perfect. The art of political organizing is in the midst of a broad
philosophical overhaul that erases many of the old distinctions between
young voters and their elders.
Basically, it's 19th century politics using 21st century tools. The
idea is rooted in a deceptively simple truth: voters are more likely to
go to the polls if they are asked face-to-face by someone they trust.
The rediscovery of this antique notion began in the 1990s when
researchers at Yale University published several influential studies
proving that personal canvassing is more effective than direct mail or
phone calls from strangers. In 2001, Republicans put the idea to a test
in several special congressional elections, and the extra money and
time devoted to door-knocking produced instant results. So the G.O.P.
expanded the effort in 2002, then applied it to presidential politics
in 2004. The party's mammoth "72-Hour Project" — named for the final
weekend of the campaign, when G.O.P. volunteers made literally millions
of personal pitches — helped George W. Bush become the first candidate
since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote.
"It's really the same way we organized back in the heyday of political
machines: know your voters and turn them out personally," says George
Mason University associate professor Michael McDonald, an expert on
voter participation. "Obama has keyed into this and applied it on
campus, using students to recruit other students."
What began as a tactic to capture rural caucuses snowballed into a
systematic strategy. Obama put his money where his mouth was, spending
precious radio and television dollars on ads aimed specifically at Iowa
students. A student-to-student phone bank dialed tens of thousands of
dorm rooms and cell phones. By Election Day, "we had our entire field
operation working to turn them out," says Riemer.
One recent evening in the trendy loft district of downtown St.
Louis, students from Missouri campuses gathered at Obama's state
headquarters to plan the final phase of their own Super Tuesday effort.
Quentin Anderson, 19, welcomed them by saying, "The youth vote is the
most important factor in this cycle. We need to keep that momentum
going." Glenn Rehn, 25, reported that Obama volunteers at the
University of Missouri had collected 800 signed pledges of support
before leaving campus for winter break. Kevin Wolfe, 19, said that for
his group at Washington University in St. Louis, the Iowa success was
like throwing a switch. "People see that he can win, and they are
moving off the fence."
As the meeting continued, the students traded ideas for fund-raising
concerts and teasingly racy "Show Us Your O-Face" parties. They
discussed plans for "dorm-storming," a canvassing technique that
matches student volunteers with dormitories where they live or have
friends. "It's a very intimate interaction because they're hearing
about Obama from someone they already know," Wolfe explained.
The point of all these activities is to collect as many names as
possible of potential supporters and then badger the prospects until
they cast their ballots. Those Yale studies found that pleading doesn't
become ineffective until after the third appeal. Washington University
sophomore Charlie Bittner, 19, told the group he planned to take the
personal approach even further. "I will lead groups every 30 minutes
from a spot on campus to the polling place," he said. "People feel more
comfortable if they're part of a group."
The 21st century part is this: technology makes it easier than ever
to create networks and share enthusiasm. Facebook, the largest of
Internet social-networking sites, boasts a market share of more than
85% of four-year U.S. universities, with millions of members averaging
20 minutes per day on-site exploring interests and keeping track of
friends. Facebook has all the power of Meetup, the online campaign
sensation that powered Howard Dean's brief moment in the presidential
spotlight four years ago — plus much more. Its 65 billion page views
per month make Facebook perfect for rapidly spreading messages and
creating trends. "A kid puts up an Obama page, and suddenly she has 35
friends gathered," Riemer marvels. "It was so much more work to get
started just five years ago."
That is not the only advantage of technology. Finding and communicating
with students have traditionally been a nightmare for politicians.
Students are constantly moving from home to dorm to group house to
campus apartment. They don't typically show up in the databases
purchased by campaigns: rolls of past voters, lists of homeowners and
membership files of special-interest groups. They aren't regular
watchers of TV news or subscribers to newspapers. But kids can now
catch candidate speeches and debate snippets on YouTube. Their
cell-phone numbers and e-mail addresses follow them everywhere.
Technology makes it easier for them to volunteer too: students who
might never show up at a phone bank can now download contacts from a
central database and make calls from the comfort of their dorm rooms.
Loosely connected to traditional networks, young people are intensely
connected online. They once were lost but now can be found, and Obama
is being rewarded for making the effort to look.
Barack the Vote
If you want
to feel old, just tell a group of teenagers today that you can remember
a time when the Clintons were hip. There was this guy on TV, see,
called Arsenio Hall, and Bill Clinton went on wearing sunglasses and
playing a saxophone, and, well, no, it wasn't on YouTube — this was
before most people had heard of the Internet — oh, never mind. There's
nothing new, for today's young people, about a Clinton replacing a
Bush.
Claire McCaskill's daughter, to take one newly eligible voter, was
all of 2 years old when that happened the first time. The Gingrich
revolution came during her pre-K years; impeachment was around second
grade. In other words, no matter how many times Hillary Clinton intones
the magic word of 2008 — change — it's going to ring a bit hollow, because she is an eternal piece of their mental furniture.
Obama, by contrast, radiates the new. He doesn't just talk about
change; he looks like change. His person and his platform are virtually
indistinguishable. Obama, like Tiger Woods and Angelina Jolie, has one
of those faces that seem beamed from a postracial future, when everyone
will have a permanent, noncarcinogenic tan. He has small kids and a low
BMI. His voice rumbles with authority, but his ears stick out like Opie
Taylor's. His campaign is crawling with cool young people, and the
candidate fits right in. We've yet to see Obama flustered or harried;
instead, he gives off the enigmatic Zen confidence of the guy who is
picked first for every game.
His lack of experience can even seem like an asset to young voters.
"I like that he's new," says Neil Stewart, 18, a freshman at the
University of Colorado in Boulder. "We need some freshness in our
government right now." Obama's "inexperience means he comes in with a
fresh look and isn't quite as jaded by the political system as most
other people are," says Jennifer Zamarripa, 26, a University of Denver
law-school student. "He's new and modern and breaking with the past,"
says José Villanueva, 21, a senior at Claremont McKenna College in
California.
It's hard to overstate the extent to which thick Washington résumés are
out of vogue on U.S. campuses. Especially among young Democrats, many
of whom cast their first votes in 2006 to elect a Congress that would
change course in Iraq and make progress on issues like health care. The
yawning chasm between what was promised in that campaign and what the
Democratic Congress has actually delivered makes everyone with
seniority in Washington automatically suspect. Joseph Biden and
Christopher Dodd probably have socks that have spent more time in the
Senate than has Obama, and look what good their years of experience did
for them.
It's also true that the issues of the past are not necessarily the
issues most compelling for today's students. Pollster Frank Luntz
gathered a focus group of New Hampshire students on the eve of the
primary there, and the hour-long conversation barely touched on the hot
buttons of yore: abortion, crime and affirmative action. Their world,
after all, encompasses RU 486, lower murder rates and Oprah. What
concerns many of them is the nature of politics: the perceived gridlock
of parties, conniving of special interests and shallow biases of the
media. When Obama talks broadly about changing those dynamics, what
strikes some older ears as airy and substance-free hits younger voters
as the chime of insight. Washington University senior Matt Adler, 21,
puts it this way, "What Obama brings to the forefront is the issue of
process. It's not just what gets done but how it gets done; the
morality of the process matters. Being honest, open and inclusive is an
issue in itself."
Of course, young people are far from unanimous. "If we were electing
someone on the basis of their ability to give great speeches, then
Obama would be a great choice," says Jonathan Beam, 21, a political
science major at Emory University. "But Hillary Clinton outshines the
rest of the field with her experience, and I just don't think we can
afford to let another candidate get on-the-job training." While you can
find students who aren't voting for Obama, though, it's harder to find
students who don't recognize his appeal. "A lot of my friends from home
are Republicans," says Caitlin Ellis, 20, a University of Missouri
junior, "and it's refreshing not to have to fight tooth and nail with
them when I say I'm for Obama."
Where Obama could be onto something truly rare is the way his
campaign themes, personal story and base of support reinforce one
another. Obama radiates change, which attracts young people, which in
turn validates the message of change. He tells young people they can
make a difference, and they decide to vote, thus making a difference.
"Hope is the thing with feathers," as Emily Dickinson put it, and if
Obama can make it fly, it can have deep implications in a society
primed to follow the passions of youth. As cultural critic Thomas Frank
explained in his book The Conquest of Cool,
advertising agencies in the 1960s forever transformed youth from a
demographic group to a consuming ideal. Historian T.J. Jackson Lears of
Rutgers University traces the association of youth with political
renewal far into America's past. "It's quite thoroughly embedded," he
says. "It really begins with Theodore Roosevelt," who became President
at age 42. Freshness and vitality have almost always sold better than
the worry lines of veteran leadership.
Tomorrow's Democrats Today
Will it happen? There are plenty of reasons to doubt. Obama's Iowa
effort was long on money and loaded with time. Conditions were perfect
for the slow, hard work of grassroots organizing. Now it's the
opposite. On Feb. 5, half the remaining states will vote, including
those with megapopulations such as California, Arizona, Georgia and New
York State. What's more, the rules are less favorable to student
organizers. Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada all had some of the most
liberal voting laws in the country. Same-day registration meant that
first-time voters could be swept to the polls by a last-minute appeal.
By contrast, those Missouri volunteers and their counterparts in many
other states face the hard fact that students who weren't registered
weeks earlier will be stuck on the sidelines. They can't catch the
Obama wave no matter how many times they are asked in the cafeteria.
However, Hillary Clinton also confronts the harsh math of too many
states and too few resources. Super Tuesday will be another step into
uncharted territory in this unusually competitive, uniquely
front-loaded campaign. In the absence of wall-to-wall television ads,
what role will online communications play? Will turnout remain high as
campaign field operations are stretched thinner than pantyhose? If the
enthusiasm wanes, who stays home — Obama's kids or Hillary's geezers?
"I'm confident that we will turn out more young voters than ever
before," says Riemer, "but what size piece of the puzzle that
ultimately is, I just can't say."
When young people get involved, they tend to stay involved. The
graybeards of today's Democratic Party were once the inspired youth of
the New Frontier, or Clean for Gene McCarthy, or bell-bottomed foot
soldiers for George McGovern. Scan the crowd at an Obama rally, squint,
and you just might see the future. For the moment, it's enough for
young Obama supporters to feel that they are part of something big and
historic. "I am a believer that change can happen," says Patricia
Griffin, 25, a student at St. Louis Community College. "So-called
Washington experience has given us an unjustified war, an economy
slipping, the dollar losing its value, health care impossible to
afford. I'm telling my friends they can make a difference this time.
They can vote."
With reporting by
Karen Tumulty/Washington, Paige Bowers/Athens, Rita Healy/Denver, Kristin Kloberdanz/Berkeley and Justin Horwath/Minneapolis |
