Candidates Reaching Out to Youth

The youth are a huge demographic in the elections this year, and the candidates are aware of this. All the candidates are reaching out to the youth, trying hard to rally their vote. Even in mid-March, "more than 5.7 million voters under the age of 30 [had] participated in the primaries and caucuses held thus far. That's a 109 percent increase from the last set of presidential primaries, according to Rock the Vote," and I'm sure the numbers have increased since then ("Young Voters Could Put Obama or Clinton in the White House"). The youth are voting in huge numbers this year, and the youth can really make a difference in the election.

Hillary Clinton tried to mobilize youth by setting up a "feature on [the campaign's] web site that allows Facebook users to ask her questions." Clinton also stated that "we should even have a government blogging team where people in the agencies are constantly telling all of you...everything that's going on so that you have up-to-the-minute information about what your government is doing" ("Clinton Chasing Youth Vote: 'We Should Have a Government Blogging Team!' ")

However, Barack Obama seems to be more successful in bringing in the youth vote. Compared to Clinton, "Obama has captured more than 50 percent of the vote of 18-to-29-year-olds in nearly every primary contest to date," according to Cora Currier's "Obama's Youth Movement." How is Obama doing this? Obama's "organization on campuses is excellent, and he has tapped successfully into the power of social networking sites and the viral messaging of YouTube" (Currier). At South Carolina State University, Obama even had big-name celebrities help him. Usher, Kerry Washington, and Chris Tucker helped him to recruit for the primaries ("Usher Brings Obama a Little Love").

On the Republican side, John McCain is also, to the surprise of some, getting some votes of the youth. McCain "won the youth vote in more states than any other GOP contender on Super Tuesday" and he is also "perceived by voters and the media to be a maverick with good credentials on some top youth issues" (Michael Connery's blog (he's the guy from the IMPACT conference!)). At the MTV/ MySpace candidate dialogue, "he knocked it out of the park and actually gained ground among the young voters watching and participating in the debate" (Michael Connery). Also, I had no idea about this and this is really cool, but Connery mentions that McCain has "made high profile appearances in hit movies like the Wedding Crashers, hit TV shows like 24, and he's been on the Daily Show more times than [he] can count."

All of the candidates are targeting the youth in some way, and we'll watch as the youth turnout hopefully increases.

~Sarah