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Thursday, 04 November 2010 14:18 |
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Then remember this: you reap what you sow.
by Nikki Serapio, Manager, New Media Strategies
If you didn't catch Rock the Vote's take on the midterms (we posted the RTV analysis earlier today), be sure to check it out — a lot of insights therein about what Congress and the Obama administration MUST do over the next few years in order to engage and re-engage young people.
So where are we? When I dug through the election postmortems this morning, I was surprised (perhaps I should not have been?) by the number of knee-jerk and evidence-flimsy news articles and blog posts about the youth vote. Some pundits will never cease scapegoating young people, but nevertheless it was frustrating to see one particularly specious argument making the rounds today: look here...there was a decline in under 30-year-old turnout in yesterday's election versus the 2008 election...and therefore young people are to blame for the Democratic Party's losses yesterday.
Never mind the fact that it's unfair to compare a midterm election to a presidential election. When you take an honest look at the numbers for this cycle, you see one bare truth amidst the spin.
As Rock the Vote emphasized today:
"The shortfall in young voter turnout from 23.5% in 2006 to 20.4% in 2010, according to Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement’s (CIRCLE) analysis of exit poll data, is a result of what happens when candidates and campaigns fail to reach and engage young people and ask them for their votes."
The point above is worth repeating: candidates across the country failed to reach young people and ask them directly for their support. Period. Our elected officials need to own their failure. In an election where Republicans compared Democrats to "demon sheep," and where Democrats accused Republicans of worshiping an "Aqua Buddha," the pols either forgot or recklessly neglected the fact that young voters simply aren't convinced by ad hominem attacks and a politics of personal destruction. Every minute that candidates wasted on negative, hyperbolic campaigning was a minute that they could have spent directly asking young people to carry them across the finish line.
Putting it another way, while a number of high-profile candidates were screeching about the evil/immoral/selfish/America-hating/economically gluttonous (pick your adjective) souls of their opponents, others committed an equally egregious sin: they remained utterly silent about the very issues (student aid reform, climate change, LGBT and immigrant rights, health care and job assistance, etc.) that young people care deeply about.
Fortunately, with the bad there's some good news. Rock the Vote reported on some key successes today:
"In Pennsylvania, we saw a 25% increase in votes cast over 2006 totals in the nine most youth dense precincts in Philadelphia that we aggressively targeted for voter registration and peer-to-peer contacts. In addition, partner organizations such as the Student PIRGs saw a 35% increase in votes cast at Temple University (Ward 20/ District 9). Youth-dense precincts at North Carolina Central University and the University of North Carolina showed a 100% increase in votes cast from 2006 where Rock the Vote invested resources on the ground."
So there you have it. The above efforts reflect what's really needed for electoral success vis-a-vis the youth vote. Aggressive and sustained voter registration. An outreach strategy that doesn't talk down to young people, but instead taps into the power and built-in trust of youth-to-youth communication. And a campaign that is willing to pay the sunk cost of meeting young voters where they are already at — whether it's the campus quad or elsewhere. Given this proven recipe for success, you have to ask: Why did our elected officials waste the opportunity?
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