Election excitement…
February 14th, 2008, 2:15 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Linda Weller
It’s inspiring to see how many young adults seem to be invigorated by this year’s presidential election, packing candidates’ speech arenas and vowing to vote.
Even I, who cover local politics as part of my job and find them interesting, will admit to yawning through some presidential elections of the 1980’s and 1990’s. I did vote each time, though, in spite of people I supported early on always getting culled before those November races and sometimes before the primary.
I also will admit to voting for third party candidates a couple of times because I believed no one else deserved my vote.
A few Sundays ago I saw several young women standing along Kingshighway and Lindell Boulevard in St. Louis waving, yelling and holding “Hillary Clinton” signs in chilly weather. They looked to be college age and I admired their enthusiasm and committment to a candidate when they could have been keeping warm indoors. I don’t know if they were paid to do so, but I doubt it.
Hundreds of young people also packed the floor of the Edward Jones Dome recently, waiting an hour and a half or longer on their feet to see and hear presidential candidate Barack Obama. Some squeezed through the already tightly pressed crowd to get closer, which was not an admirable ploy. One twenty-something woman clutched Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream ” in an apparent, and probably futile desire to get him to sign her copy in the midst of 20,000 people.
What is amusing to someone my age is whenever a candidate finally appears on stage, the age division is apparent: Young people automatically pop up their cellular telephones’ cameras above their heads to capture whatever far-away image they can of the person. Minutes before, they were calling their friends, sometimes just across the room, in a scenario people would have laughed off as a silly idea a couple decades ago.
From my unofficial vantage point, though, I don’t think I’ve seen such young enthusiasm for an election in decades (Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern?) and I hope it continues, no matter who the newbie voters support. Perhaps some of the excitement is antiwar-generated, as with McCarthy and McGovern when the Vietnam conflict was raging. Voting equals democracy, even though many of us aren’t real confident of the “fair and accurate” machines that count our votes. My 21-year-old daughter said all of her friends say they plan to vote Nov. 4, even if they skipped the Super Tuesday primary (she didn’t miss it).
I think Illinois moving up its primary and becoming part of a larger voting entity that day also created more excitement in voters of all ages. In primaries past, it was always disappointing to vote in March after so many other states essentially had knocked out the candidate for whom I wanted to vote - or otherwise locked in another front runner. It was especially aggravating when those states were only a fraction of the size of Illinois!
Still, sometimes I futilely would vote for my out-of-running candidate-of-choice anyway, or for the second-place candidate, but I knew my vote wasn’t important at that point. I just wanted to show my support and hoped maybe it would help get him some funding.
In contrast to the bygone election years, campaigners now can attract young (and older) voters via the Internet, bombarding them with candidates’ quotes; their immediate takes on various issues or world developments; speech schedules; and the all-important pleas for donations. I’m sure the e-mail lists are precious commodities to all of the candidates, and that their campaigners constantly seek new names.
Also online are professional and amateurish efforts to spread support of candidates, such as on YouTube, which mostly younger people view. The pro-Obama, “Yes We Can” video by “will.i.am” of hip-hop group, Black Eyed Peas, is getting play and “news” coverage by the national, mainstream media. By doing an Internet search, people also can locate online videos of fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans John McCain and Mike Huckabee, some of which are “anti-videos.”
No doubt presidential campaigns in the future will continue utilizing the latest technology for more creative means to transmit their message to more people, and of course, to raise money. The first people to pick up on these methods - as well as being their targets - likely will be those in their teens and 20’s.
The challenge will be to get these people to differentiate between entertainment and real issues, to hold their attention and loyalty, and finally get them to carry through with their votes. It will be up to the young voters to cut through the hype and further study the candidates and his or stances.
