Stop, Children, What's That Sound

Post-election CW has been that the vaunted youth vote was a no-show last Tuesday… according to the same exit polls that gave John Kerry a handy win. David King's got a persuasive Boston Globe column suggesting that they missed the youth vote surge that came largely in the form of absentee ballots, which students are disproportionately likely to make use of.

Comments

[Josh]

I hear that there's millions of cell phone-only voters that haven't been counted yet.

[pigwiggle]

I'm glad they stayed home. Most young people have only the shallowest grasp of current issues/events. I want informed voters, not some P.Diddy fan voting cause he was told to 'vote or die'.

[TWC]

What's that sound?

The sound of spinning BS

[Ruthless]

"they judged President Bush to be a stronger leader with a more "authentic" personal style."

I've just come from the thread about the jump in jobs created.
I'm thinking youth may have realized Kerry was not being "authentic" to have made such a big deal about jobs lost during Bush's four years.

[joe]

It stands to reason that there was high youth turnout, and that they went big for Kerry. There was high overall turnout. If the additional voters had all been Karl Rove's 4 million evangelicals, and Kerry's vote had stayed about the same, Bush's margin would have been much higher.

[thoreau]

Not to mention the number of students who had to vote provisional because they can't be bothered to update their registration when they move. Not that I'm bitter or anything about the 66 provisional ballots I handled on Tuesday...

[Pavel]

There was a big youth vote turnout. There was a big turnout across the board, so it's not as visible.

Most young people have only the shallowest grasp of current issues/events. I want informed voters, not some P.Diddy fan voting cause he was told to 'vote or die'.

Don't worry, I'm sure when they come of age they'll start voting according to more mature criteria, like "who will better protect me from two men kissing?"

[thoreau]

Don't worry, I'm sure when they come of age they'll start voting according to more mature criteria, like "who will better protect me from two men kissing?"

lol!

It's always funny to hear people criticize youth voters for being frivolous and uninformed, and then turn around and endorse a candidate who's campaigning on a platform of regulating your neighbor's bedroom activities. Voting for somebody because a hot young starlet said so is no more ridiculous than voting for somebody because he'll crack down on 2 guys kissing.

Most important, though, is finding a candidate who will put in place policies that encourage hot young starlets to kiss each other in public!

[Jimmy Antley]

Maybe both of y'all should stay home next time, and let my vote count more, so's I can at least cancel out Joe's idiotic decisions.

[thoreau]

Jimmy-

Are you suggesting I shouldn't go out and vote in favor of candidates who will promote hot young starlets making out in public?

Then again, maybe I should be careful what I wish for. Because a government program to get girls to make out in public would probably lead to a bunch of really ugly girls receiving public funds to make out in public. And that's simply no good!

[tsiroth]

Obviously, what's really needed here is a government program to make Thoreau more sensitive to the plight of really ugly girls.

[andy]

"Obviously, what's really needed here is a government program to make Thoreau more sensitive to the plight of really ugly girls."

What would such a plan consist of, beer? 🙂

[Dan]

It's always funny to hear people criticize youth voters for being frivolous and uninformed, and then turn around and endorse a candidate who's campaigning on a platform of regulating your neighbor's bedroom activities.

Is it too much to ask that this ridiculous hyperbole could die down now that Kerry's an extremely boring footnote in the political history books? Continuing the policy of not recognizing two men or two women as married is not equivalent to "regulating bedroom activites" and "preventing two men from kissing". And would you people ranting that the gay marriage issue won the election for Bush stop for a minute and consider that the ONLY evidence of that is that Bill Bennett claimed it was true? Both candidates were against gay marriage, and the amendment that Bush backed was opposed by a large majority of Americans, even in the red states. Bush's biggest gains this election were among people who never attend church, not among Bible-thumpers.

Here's the simple truth: letting a candidate's stance on gay marriage convince you to vote for OR against a Presidential candidate is a frivolous and uninformed action to take (I'm looking at you, Andrew Sullivan). The anti-marriage amendment will not pass in the next four years, regardless of what the President wants. Gay marriage will not be legally recognized in the next four years, regardless of what the President wants. Letting a politician's stance on an issue convince you to vote for or against him, when his stance on that issue has NO EFFECT ON ANYTHING, is pretty much the gold standard for a frivolous voting practice.

[andy]

Dan,

Are you crazy? Anti-gay-marriage amendment passed by a large margin in every state where it was proposed. What would make you think that a federal amendment wouldn't pass?

[joe]

Right, Dan. Sullivan must have turned against Bush mainly because of gay rights issues.

It's simply not possible for someone who supported the war to feel betrayed by Abu Ghraib, Al Qa-Qaa, and the Ahmed Chalabi scandal.

[TWC]

Andy,

"What would make you think that a federal amendment wouldn't pass?"

Well, first off there was the very simple and very explicit ERA that never passed despite a majority of liberal female voters and little argument from anyone over whether chicks should actually have equal rights.

Second, we aren't talking about simple majorities in a few states, the amendment would have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states, a nearly insurmountable task that I just don't see happening.

[Dan]

Are you crazy? Anti-gay-marriage amendment passed by a large margin in every state where it was proposed. What would make you think that a federal amendment wouldn't pass?

An amendment banning gay marriage lost by a wide margin in the House and failed to muster even a simple majority in the Senate. Around sixty percent of the electorate opposes such an amendment. Opposition to gay marriage and gay rights is shrinking with each passing year; if the amendment didn't go through this year, it's never going to.

Sure, gay marriage opponents have had success at the state level, but that's because people are considerably more willing to amend their state constitutions than they are to force a Constitutional change onto the entire nation. And you're also forgetting that anti-gay-marriage amendments were proposed for numerous states over the last year or so -- the eleven states whose populations approved them are just the eleven that didn't vote them down in the legislature.

Right, Dan. Sullivan must have turned against Bush mainly because of gay rights issues.

Andrew Sullivan has cited many reasons for disliking the job Bush has done. But it's a simple fact that Sullivan initially announced his opposition to Bush's reelection in response to Bush's endorsement of an anti-gay-marriage amendment -- Sullivan made the announcement himself, on his weblog, early this year.

It's simply not possible for someone who supported the war to feel betrayed by Abu Ghraib, Al Qa-Qaa, and the Ahmed Chalabi scandal.

Yes, it's simply not possible. All three of those things came to light *after* Andrew Sullivan announced his opposition to Bush.

[andy]

"people are considerably more willing to amend their state constitutions than they are to force a Constitutional change onto the entire nation"

Hmmm...

You know, I hope you're right, but I just figure that if an amendment like this could pass here in Michigan (which isn't THAT hick of a state) with 70% approval then it could pass in 3/4 of the states (i.e. the red states)

[pigwiggle]

thoreau-

?Voting for somebody because a hot young starlet said so is no more ridiculous than voting for somebody because he'll crack down on 2 guys kissing.?

There were only two of these guys on my ballot of perhaps 45 candidates/initiatives/amendments/judges (state supreme even)/bond measures/? I think, as libertarians, we all know federal offices are a pipe dream for now. The state legislature and ballot initiatives are where it?s at, props to the free staters. The last thing I want here is a bunch of stupid kids voting for the left because their idols told them to. I want them to stay home so my vote is worth more. No one votes libertarian because its sexy, they vote libertarian because of hard fought ideologies. I vote like I do because every day I reexamined one belief or other. I don?t want this diluted by some ignorant kid.