Barack Obama fills me with the hope that young people will vote the same way we always do: by staying home on Election Day.
Freshly minted voters have a long, proud history of low turnout. Only 41 percent of the voting-age population from 18 to 24 years old voted in 2004. And that was supposed to be an election in which young people became a shaping force in the electoral landscape. Apparently no one thought we could resist incentives like rapper P. Diddy’s “Vote or Die” campaign. But resist we did.
What makes this 41 percent figure even more telling is that it was a significant increase over the 32 percent of 18- to 24-year- olds who voted in 2000.
The last time even half of the 18- to 24-year-olds in the nation bothered to turn out for an election was in 1968. This year, we’re told that things are going to change. At many caucuses and primaries, the high turnout of young voters was a major coup. USA Today reported in May that 87 percent of young voters say they plan to vote in this election.
If I believed that the ultimate goal of a representative democracy is voter turnout, I would count this increased interest as great news. But I think it’s terrible news.
In research about Obama’s appeal to young people, I found incredibly few substantive reasons why young voters might be so excited about him. Most analyses seem to focus on Obama’s youth and his ability to connect with the 18-to-24 demographic. One story even explored the various ways in which Obama is seen as “cooler” than John McCain.
I would be much more comfortable with this influx of new voters if they seemed to care about the economy and national defense instead of which candidate has Ludacris on his iPod.
Veteran journalist Vaughan Ververs told a foreign press briefing in June that young voters don’t have mortgages and “they’re not worried about their health care, they’re not worried about these issues that we’ve put on the news.” That’s a problem. These new voters seem more interested in personality than in policy.
I don’t doubt that there are many young voters making their decisions based upon real issues like Iraq, the economy, and Social Security. All too often, though, even their views on these issues seem to have been influenced by celebrities like Dave Matthews instead of thinkers like Milton Friedman.
Coloradan Rex Wessel, a 21-year-old self-described “non-Obamaton” who has interned at free-market think tanks, has met many young people who make their decisions based upon “soft” reasoning.
“Instead of saying, ‘I support Obama because of his views on free trade agreements,’ too many young people say they like him because they think he’ll make the economy fair,” Wessel said. “But if you ask them to explain what that would mean, they’re at a loss.”
Unfortunately, the whole nation stands to lose when this decision-making process is used to pick the Leader of the Free World. Sure, the possibility exists that the more charming candidate might also be the best candidate. But we won’t always be lucky.
That’s why I hope that come November, uninformed young voters everywhere will say, “Yes we can vote . . . but we won’t.”
T.J. Wihera (timothy.wihera @gmail.com) of Littleton is a 2008 graduate of CU Boulder. Check out his blog contributions on Generation Y at www.generationwhy. com/whysperspective.
