The Emerging Youth Narrative

Here's a roundup of some more media and blog coverage of the youth vote:

• College Campuses Revel in Pivotal Political Role - Reuters
• It's a New Day - Vibe
• It's "Young" Love - NY Post
• Kids These Days - The Weekly Standard
• Losing the Youth Vote - The Atlantic
• The Straight Ticket Youth Vote - The Next Right
• Young Voter Turnout Up, But Fails to Break '72 Record - Daily Kos
• The Fire of a New Generation - Campus Progress
• A New Generation Transforms US Politics - Financial Times

This last piece, written by James Carville, deserves to be quoted:

Exit polling indicates that Mr Obama won two-thirds of those voting under 30 years old against 32 per cent for John McCain. Compare that with a 54-45 margin for John Kerry in 2004 and a 48-46 margin for Al Gore in 2000. Consider this: if young people had voted for Democrats at about the same proportion of the overall electorate (52-46) as they had voted as recently as 2000 for Mr Gore and for many cycles prior, Mr Obama would not have won North Carolina or Indiana. Young voters also provided the margin of victory in key battleground states such as Florida, Virginia and Ohio. The youth vote expanded the map for Mr Obama; it put him over the top in states not won by Democrats in decades.

Overall these stories are incredibly positive. They acknowledge that youth turnout - while still not fully known - increased, even if it will not be a record turnout. They all also focus on the fact that, during the Presidency of George W. Bush, the youth vote has shifted overwhelmingly to the left, and that in some battleground states, that shift may be the difference between victory and defeat. Young voters played a large role in expanding the electoral playing field in 2008.

I'd also highly recommend checking out the articles on the Next Right and Weekly Standard. Conservative activists are beginning to understand the significance of young voters, and how royally screwed they are if Democrats lock-in the partisan allegiance of Millennials. Even better for progressives, they realize that the Right faces a terrible Catch-22: to stay relevant they must appeal to young voters, but in order to do so they must jettison their base and move to the left on a number of issues, including social issues that are the bread and butter of Christian conservatives.

This is a great post election storyline, and worlds away from what we saw four years ago, when the media misreported that the youth vote didn't show up.