The Youth Hate Bush Even More

[Dardedar]

Youth Give Bush Poor Grade, Hurting Republican Hopes, Poll Says

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's hopes of attracting a new generation of voters to the Republican Party may be fading, as younger Americans are far more critical of his job performance than the broader population.

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of Americans age 18 to 24 found Bush's approval rating was 20 percent, with 53 percent disapproving and 28 percent with no opinion. That compares to a 40 percent approval rating among Americans of all ages in a separate Bloomberg/Times poll.

Much like Franklin Roosevelt attracted a new generation of voters with the New Deal, Bush and his administration have had high hopes of drawing younger voters to his party. He has sought to do that through policy initiatives aimed at creating an ``ownership society,'' and public relations tactics like a Youth Convention at the party's 2004 national convention, in which his twin daughters took the stage.

Among the initiatives aimed at drawing a new generation into the Republican fold are health-care savings accounts, elimination of the so-called marriage penalty in the U.S. tax code, and Bush's proposal to create private investment accounts from a portion of Social Security payroll taxes. `Younger Americans really want to see some leadership,'' Bush said last year as he launched his Social Security plan.

Instead, the Social Security initiative flopped in Congress after attracting criticism from the public and lawmakers of both parties, and health-care savings accounts haven't done much to expand coverage, with only about 1 percent of the U.S. population currently participating in them.

Social Issues

Bush's 2004 re-election strategy also may have damaged his party's standing with younger voters by stressing things intended to drive religious voters concerned about social issues to the ballot box, such as opposition to gay marriage.

``The very cultural issues the president wants to use to rally his party's base are exactly the issues that are alienating younger voters,'' said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. ``Across a broad swath of social issues, younger Americans see the administration as being out of line with what they believe.''

The war in Iraq is also a major factor driving down public opinion among young voters, said Hans Riemer, political director at Rock the Vote, a group that works to get young people involved in civic life.

``Young people take it very personally,'' he said. ``They feel like it's their generation that's been asked to sacrifice.''

One poll participant, K.C. Chojnacki, an 18-year-old starting her first year in college, expressed those concerns in a follow-up interview. ``I disapprove mostly because I don't agree with the war,'' said Chojnacki, who is from Andover, Minnesota. ``We're going to have to deal with the repercussions, like having to pay for it.''

MORE

[Tony]

This is all well and good Darrel, now if we can just get the little waterheads to vote proportionately for a change.

For instance, the only age demographic that Kerry carried in 2004 was the under 30 vote. And he carried it big. The problem was that even though voting was up among all age groups, the youth vote was still way below the average turnout. In fact, had kids under 30 voted at the same rate the rest of the country did in 2004, Kerry would have won easily.

So, how do we translate this youthful distaste with Bush into poll numbers?
Tred

[Dardedar]

Maybe the kiddies shouldn't have to wait in line ten hours in order to have their vote flipped by a Diebold computer program.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Nor to have it tossed out as "spoiled" because they had the audacity to vote democrat. We don't actually know the percentage of youth and minority voting during the last several elections because of the high number of "spoiled" ballots in precincts where they're registered. (When you throw out an estimated 3 million votes in races that were won by under 50,000 - something's wrong, aside from screwing up the stats.)

[Hogeye]

It's a good thing that youth don't fall for the statist voting scam as much as older, more indoctrinated, people. We need to continue to encourage the rejection of electoral politics. Government is the problem, not the solution. Since the Welfare-Warfare Partly will almost certainly offer up two warmongers again, I hope to see a lesser turnout in the next general election. When slaves are asked to vote for "their" whip-cracker, the moral response is to refuse to vote.

[Tony]

You guys (well not you Hogeye) should read a book called "Deliver the Vote" by Tracy Campbell. He is a historian from the U of Kentucky, if I reemember right with US election history as one of his projects. He just goes down the long list of failures in our quest for the "perfect" vote. Democracy, especially in the US, has always been corrupt. Now, with elections so close, attention finally is being brought to irregularities. Hopefully that is the trend. And at least we don't have to deal with the rampant corruption of Political bosses like we used to. The vote in Missouri that sent Truman to the Senate in the 40's was particularly shameless. Essentially it was a battle between the KC and St. Louis bosses on who could out corrupt the other.
So yeah, there always has been, and probably will always be mass corrupting of the system. It just shocks me how, like in Florida 2000, the Republicans have been so much better at it than the dems.
Well on that cynical note.....

[Savonarola]

It just shocks me how, like in Florida 2000, the Republicans have been so much better at it than the dems.

It helps to have the head honcho of Diebold a strong supporter of Republicans and openly vowing to "deliver" votes to the Republican candidate... But no, when we see negative votes for a Democrat and more votes for a Republican in a precinct than total registered voters in said precinct, it's an "inexplicable glitch."

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Voting has always been a manipulable system. Before the "secret" ballot, physical and economic force was easily brought to bear on voters by those with power. After the "secret" ballot, cheating became the power monger's path. Whether it's "vote early and often", prisons and cemetaries, "stuffed" ballot boxes, missing ballot boxes, restricted voter access, purged voter rolls, destruction of "spoiled" ballots, or computers that register only one party's votes - there's nothing new under the sun.

The issue of voter reform has always been to find and stop the latest version of voter fraud. There will always be a new version coming up - or a revisiting of an old one (the voter IDs some states are instituting, since they cost money, are just revisiting the poll tax - which has already been declared unconstitutional). I am reminded of a comment by Winston Churchill - that democracy is slow, cumbersome, and easily the worst form of government out there - until compared with everything else. (Anne Coulter would use that quote without bothering to include the tag line.) Democracy is always a work in progress and the only way it stops working is when people stop working at it.