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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 www.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.”

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“She really feels she has the chance to win the nomination,” says one Hilary Clinton advisor. “Come on,” I say in disbelief. Then I quickly figure out that Clinton backers just might be serious. “It’s the right thing to stay in the race till the end,” they say.

Clinton supporters are banking on two big wins in the next 7 days. They hope that W VA and KY victories will impress those superdelegates who are on the fence and will re-energize donors eventually leading Clinton to the nomination.

They say that counting popular votes in Michigan and Florida (along with W VA and KY) may put her ahead in the popular vote count and that’s the argument they plan to take to superdelegates. They say Hillary—not Obama—is best prepared to take on McCain in the fall.

The demographics of W VA are a win for her—the state is predominantly white and Democrats there tend to be older. The population is the second oldest in the country, so young voters (who’ve backed Obama in huge numbers) aren’t as much of a factor.

Those young Dems are thrilled to take part in the primary. The W Va president of Young Democrats’ of America, Rod Snyder, says, “we’ve been excited about this election for months.”  It has been a generation since W VA truly played a role in selecting the Democratic nominee.

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Bill Clinton took the bait and argued with a heckler at a rally again this week. This time, he was speaking in Fayetteville, West Virginia attempting to energize voters before next week’s primary. His talk was interrupted by an angry woman who said that Hilary Clinton had promised to fix health care but did nothing. Take a look at this clip of Bill defending his wife’s work. (It has aired on just about every television network and has been watched at least 80,000 times on YouTube.)

The exchange was also picked up by the West Virginia papers and also the New York Times and I’m sure we haven’t seen the end of it.

Politicians have always been caught in moments they’d rather forget, but in the world of bloggers, 24 hour cable news and embedded reporters, moments like these have become media staples and are memorialized the web.

“If a candidate says something or a surrogate says something that they shouldn’t be saying then it’s going to be everywhere,” says Shushannah Walshe, a FOX News producer and embedded reporter.

Of all the politicians, Bill Clinton falls victim to never the ending news coverage the most.

Who can forget the fairy tale flap over Barack Obama and his position on the war…

or when he shamed a CNN reporter….

Chastised an NBC reporter for asking a question

and became frustrated about the NV caucuses with a local ABC reporter

He is making headlines at a time when Hillary should be in the spotlight.
“He turns red-faced, he starts wagging his finger and then it’s all over and there’s nothing he can do to stop it,” says Charles Hurt, Washington bureau chief for the New York Post. (Owned by our parent company)

Why is he making news? One theory is that he’s not hip today’s media environment. When he ran for president in 1992 and 1996 the internet wasn’t in wide use, TV networks had two deadlines (the morning shows and the nightly news) cable news was in its infancy (except CNN) and few newspapers were on-line. There wasn’t the drive for 24 hour news and politicians weren’t held accountable for every thing they said-today things are different.

New to political coverage are embedded reporters. The concept started in 2003 with the war in Iraq and has since spread to the campaign trail. They are young, energetic and carry just a small camera, laptop and blackberry.

“The whole concept behind the embed reporter was to travel with the candidates 24/ 7 report their every word, their every action and then be able to transmit the file to the newsroom,” said Cristina Corbin, a former Clinton and Edwards embed.

Embeds keep daily blogs and alert the bosses to news made on the campaign trail. Meet ours here:
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/

Each network and major newspaper have ‘em and they’re driving Bill Clinton nuts.

“Some of the people that are embedded with me — that’s what you call the press that have to follow you around,” Clinton recently said. “The embeds,” he said and laughed. “Sounds kinda like a spy, doesn’t it?”

Shushannah Walshe puts it this way, “Even though the Clinton campaign might have seen us as trying to catch them we’re really covering this to the best of our ability.”

Cristina Corbin, FNC Embed Reporter

Shushannah Walshe, FNC Embed Reporter

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I usually write about the youth vote, but today I couldn’t resist this… New York is a colorful place to live. Last night I had dinner with a friend in Staten Island, home to some great Italian restaurants. Driving there from the city after work we passed through Brooklyn and I saw this sign. “Leaving Brooklyn-Fugheddaboutit” I couldn’t stop laughing.

New Yorkers have a great sense of humor and the cannoli doesn’t get much better.

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Barack Obama had a great night Tuesday and he has young voters to thank.

They backed him big time–74 percent of those under the age of 30 voted for Obama on Tuesday, according to Fox News exit poll results.

Young voters made up 14 percent of those who cast ballots. Turnout was about the same as in other primaries.

The big question leading in to Tuesday was how Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his controversial positions would affect Obama. Last week, polls showed that that support for Obama among Democrats had dwindled. I guess the voters felt differently when they walked into polling stations.

In Indiana and North Carolina roughly 6 in 10 young Democrats felt that Obama’s association with Rev. Wright was not important.

In Indiana one co-ed put it this way, “”Students are more concerned about Barack Obama’s policies and not necessarily who he was attached to in the past.”

John White of the group Generation Engage talked to FNC’s Neal Cavuto from North Carolina yesterday. He said young people aren’t really interested in Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright, “The campaign hasn’t really affected young people when it comes to discussions of Reverend Wright and other issues.”

More than 75 percent of Democrats made their minds up more than a month ago-in Indiana more than half of those early deciders went for Obama. This means that Rev. Wright’s colorful comments didn’t stick to Obama. Why? Well, ever since the story broke young voters have consistently said Rev. Wright’s views aren’t Obama’s views.

Caroline Kolar, an Obama supporter and Pennsylvania college student says, “If someone close to you has an opinion, it doesn’t mean it’s your opinion. If the reverend made inflammatory remarks it doesn’t mean it’s Obama’s stance.”

Voters who considered Obama’s relationship with Wright important supported Hillary Clinton by a wide margin. In Indiana, 70 percent of those who called this important backed Clinton. In North Carolina, 59 percent of those voters supported her.

Columbia University student reporter Allision Yang says, “Obama supporters will always support Obama and it’s going to take a lot more that Rev Wright to turn his supporters off from him.”

This Wright fight may not be over for Obama. If he becomes the nominee, young Republicans and Independents may not be as forgiving as young Democrats.

AP

AP

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In Indiana and North Carolina, Obama’s counting on young voters to settle the race with Clinton. The trouble is that many college students (among his most die hard fans) may have gone home for the summer and may not have voted in Indiana or North Carolina.

Most Indiana schools finished spring semester last week, so there aren’t many students on campus today. Notre Dame (with approx 11,000 total students) is in final exams this week, so students may be preoccupied with studying not voting. Realizing young voters’ interest in this election, Notre Dame and Indiana University, facilitated early voting by providing shuttles to polling places. Purdue set up early voting sites on campus (how much easier can it get?)

Take a look at Fox Report from Indiana

(http://www.thepalestra.com/schoolsite.php?sid=1956&id=12046)

In Gary, IN the school district bused voting age high schoolers to the courthouse so they could vote early. Some criticized the move as an attempt to drive up Obama’s numbers. (Gary is predominantly African American.)

Obama brought out the big gun yesterday to really motivate the crowds– Stevie Wonder -remember he’s the father of Obama’s theme song “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m yours).” We reported on the importance of campaign music a few weeks ago. http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/11/campaign-theme-music/

Hilary Clinton-not Obama-is planning her election night rally in IN. Obama is off to Raleigh, NC where a huge turnout is reported in the state, but just like in IN, many students may have already left for the summer. http://www.charlotte.com/observer/story/610336.html NC has more than 400,000 college students and nearly a dozen historically black colleges. Many students there made a huge early push for Obama. NC has an early voting program that allowed people to register and vote at the same time. Just as happened in Ohio and other states, some voters received text messages reminding them to vote.

Michelle Obama is making last minute stops in NC, as is Bill Clinton. (McCain’s also there today with wife Cindy who made an appeal to young voters in Charlotte yesterday. She said her hubby is “someone that will be a great inspiration to our young people.”

All this talk about the importance of young voters is making those in San Francisco (and Minnesota) cranky: “Hey, don’t forget us!”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/24/MNF910BGH4.DTL

AP

AP