GOP Once Owned Youth Vote—No, Really!
Go to just about any college campus in search or young Republicans and get ready for a hunt because they’re not so easy to find. This year, producer Martin and I have interviewed many, many college voters-only a handful says they’re conservative.
That wasn’t always the case. In the 1980’s Republicans had the youth vote locked up—millions of them helped elect President Reagan in ‘84 and President Bush in ‘88. In fact, they won the youth vote by 20 points! (There were no exit polls in 1980)
Back then, Republicans ran as outsiders, says Charles Hurt, DC bureau chief for the NY Post (a sister company to FNC). “They were charging the gates and they were going to smash down this slow, plodding government that was not responsive to people,” he said. Essentially, Republicans were talking about “change,” and it worked. Today that’s Barack Obama’s mantra and it’s one that many young Democrats repeat.
Obama talks “change” and Hillary Clinton touts “experience,” but what’s the Republican message this year? Come to think of it, I can’t say for sure. (House Republicans have tried to co-opt the “change” message, and regardless of whether that’s true or not, that word has already been taken and conservatives look foolish for trying to co-opt it. Gotta come up with something new, guys!
Take a look at these poll numbers. Republicans are getting killed in the youth vote: Obama leads McCain by 23 points among voters under 40, says pollster Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussenreports.com. Hillary Clinton leads the AZ senator by 10 points. FOX News polls put Obama 21 points ahead of McCain. Republicans better get cracking if they hope to catch up.
So what happened in 20 years to drive young Republicans from the GOP?
Andrea Tantaros, a former Capitol Hill staffer and familiar face on FNC, says the GOP machine is in need of repair, “The way they communicate is fundamentally broken. They have a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Andrea says in recent years Republicans have ignored young voters in order to concentrate on Hispanics. She believes that such a narrow focus has been a mistake.
Charles Hurt says look back to 1994 when Republicans took control of Congress, that’s when their message really resonated with young voters.” They were going to change everything and for young people at the time it was a pretty exciting thing with Contract with America and it really seemed that things were going to happen in Washington,” he said.
http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html
Part of the contract read: This year’s election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money.
Charles said, “Twelve years into it Republicans have proven themselves to have been just as errant as Democrats were.”
When I talk to most Republicans about the youth vote, they roll their eyes. They remind me that young people never really turn out to vote in the general election. Well, this year that doesn’t seem to be the case. Voter turnout among people under 30 has quadrupled in some primary states, leading many to believe that this fall’s election will amount to a youth quake. “Republicans cannot make the mistake of ignoring them this election cycle,” says Andrea.
Charles says, “Now the outsider is Barack Obama who says ‘tear it down’ and ‘change things in Washington,’ and that’s very appealing to young voters.”
As a college student myself in the state of Washington I have seen firsthand what this story is talking about and it does have truth to it - young voters want change in Washington and will vote for whoever will uphold that banner with the firmest grip! However, I want to add where another note to how the GOP is losing the battle. Most universities have a very liberal minded campus that is having a huge liberalizing effect on the young voters. A recent article in my school newspaper by our director of the institute of public policy in response to an outcry by some student concerning the words of renowned republican Denish D’Souza gives these facts: “During [his] time left-leaning liberal speakers have outnumbered conservatives in a ratio of 4 or 5 to one. But roughly 90 percent of all social scientists and humanities scholars are either card-carrying Democrats or those with left-of-center values and preferences. An equally illuminating point is that [our university], like so many campuses today, and especially in the College of Liberal Arts, is clearly more receptive to speakers who espouse liberal Democratic politics and policy views. While no one has ever stopped me from inviting a conservative speaker to [our university], the hegemony of the left-leaning liberal viewpoint is such that the only grief I’ve ever received from my advisory board or others is when I invited John Ashcroft, Sen. John Sununu, D’Souza and a handful of others to campus under [our] banner. I have never been interrogated or otherwise questioned about any liberal speaker I’ve invited.”
Daniel, excellent insight. thank you very much. I haven’t been on a campus for over ten years, but even back then I observed similar standards of conduct. It does appear there is a suttle brain-washig (maybe a little too harsh of a term) at most universities. No one really tells you how to think, but the saturation leans more left. This may not have much of an influence to adults who have life experience outside of college, or have undergone a maturation process external to college. But, to a young adult going from the home to acadamia, those professors are very influential to forming beliefs and values. Thanks again for raising the question and allowing us to consider cause and effect.
I am a Republican, 65 years old, and a moderate McCain will not get the votes need for a win.
My suspicions are correct!!! Obama campaigne hired 400 boggers to talk nice to Hillary supporters , trying to get Obama nominated!!
can someone please tell me, was bush a liberal????????????????
I think you all are once again missing a growing surge of young people jumping on Ron Paul’s campaign. I am from Maine and when Paul was here the crowd was about 50% people under 30. They are energized by his message of small government and personal liberties. Please begin to give Dr. Paul fair coverage, even this late in the race. What would it hurt? It could balloon your ratings! Try honesty, it’s really under rated. Youth from Ron Paul.
I am one year removed from a liberal arts college that I will not mention. I got my B.S. in business, but along with business courses (didn’t start those until late soph. year) there was something like 50+ credit hours of liberal arts credits required to graduate. The classes - pointless - there significance outside of college - nothing unless someone asks me for the history of Chinese gov’t or revolutionary europe? For classes like these, professors have pretty much free-reign to talk about whatever they want, and it ususally is intertwined with liberal ideals. Students are being brainwashed by professors, why, because we are paying 30K a year to listen to these people and what they say is gold. Young people in this country don’t care about the issues, they care about being cool. College has become an extension of high school (with much more booze and drugs and much less rules) and you are either in the cool crowd or outside. Right now, Obama is cool, period. He is the fad candidate that will be replaced with next cool candidate in 4 years (George Bush was cool too once). Take facebook for example, the Obama group huge, but people forget to realize is that people send invitations to join these groups out in mass to their “friends” and most don’t care what the group is, they click “accept” and that is it. There is no hunt for issues, or better yet looking into how policies will affect them post-graduation when they are off their parents couch.
I have been reading some facebook message boards and have come to this conclusion:
The people that know the issues, policies and their consequences, understand the war in Iraq and its history, and are actively searching for information are in favor of Hillary and McCain. And when these people are challenged by people in Obama’s group, they respond with answers and back up those answers with the proof that they have been researching - thus making these challengers look foolish and uneducated. The challengers then (I’ve seen this in almost every case) just start attacking the person who gave the answer. “You are an idiot. You don’t know what you are talking, Bush sucks, why do you want Bush again (I didn’t think he was running), or Obama is going to bring change, etc.” They never offer a true rebuttal, just personal attacks. Thus, reinforcing my earlier sediments that they are not looking for reasons to vote for a candidate, they are simply trying to remain in the “cool crowd”.
Sorry for the length, but it pisses me off that people my age (23) are so immature…probably all the beer, weed, and togas. The Internet is rotting our brains with garbage information, but the media (not Fox of course) isn’t any better.
Drew, I left you a response yesterday but it seems Fox didn’t care for it. Here’s another try. There is a huge ground swelling of youth support behind Ron Paul. Don’t listen to the mainstream media, or rather believe he’s not running because he is so blatantly blocked out. There are thousands of young people out there who are interested in the constitution, smaller government and the rules of law. Thats why they are voting for Ron Paul. He is the honest change. The return to credibility and integrity. I have 3 college age kids in three parts of the country.They all say Ron Paul is winning their generation. Please dont be so negative and discouraged, and read about him. You might just lose your apathy like so many of us have. He is still very much in the race! Good luck