I really want to believe in the brand new conventional wisdom, which is that Barak Obama has made activists and voters out of a new generation of Americans. I want to believe this even though I haven't made up my mind whom I want, myself, to be the next president of the United States. I want to believe this because I think the country desperately needs the under-30s to show up, step up, step out, as a meaningful counterweight to what I perceive as the country's downhill slide.
I want to, but I know better. It's a brutal personality defect of mine ... I second-guess myself especially when I like the way something is going. Anticipate the worst, enjoy the relief when the pointy stick misses your eye. In a month or two, we might be looking back at how Iowa launched Barak Obama on the road to the Democratic nomination. BUT ...
I suspect that the reason that the youth vote tripled, or more, in the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucuses had less to do with Obama and more to do with one very simple fact -- we've now slid the whole nominating process so far forward that the Iowa caucuses were held while colleges were on winter break. A night out politicking with friends on Jan. 3 had to look pretty good next to yet another night of mom's cooking. The under-25s won it for Obama, according to everything I've read. He won the under-25s by 17,000 or so over Clinton and Edwards.
That isn't a lot of votes. Hell, it's really about the same size as the party at a typical state university after a bowl game win.
I really do want to believe in the kids. Vote kids, vote! I trust you more to get it right, at this point, than I trust my own generation. I'm 51. We've gotten it wrong quite a lot. You voted more in 2004 but it wasn't enough.
The new conventional wisdom ... I'll swipe a single quote from Time magazine and call it representative ... is:
"Conventional wisdom" — reflected in an article by this reporter earlier this week — "has a name for candidates who rely on the youth vote: loser," said Michael McDonald, an expert on voter turnout at George Mason University. "Clearly, this was different."
It was different. That doesn't mean it has any value as a predictor. One data point doesn't make a trend. History is not on our side, here.
I'd love to be wrong, OK? The storyline that everyone has, about the motivated youth vote, is a lot sexier than what I'm guessing is a big part of the truth.
(I posted the above on my own site, but repost it here, where someone might actually read/discuss ...) ;-)