Getting the word out that young voters are not mythical unicorns that just show up in a candidate's dreams or on election day...we vote when our issues are taken seriously and when we are targeted as voters…just like all other constituency gro...
The infamous question we hear every year, will young people show up? The answer is yes and you can read lots of info on young voters over at www.futuremajority.com/press.I will be twittering (janekleeb) and blogging all day for MTV's Street Team. You can read my posts over at MTV or if you are in NY you can actually read my twitters and the other Street Team members on a huge screen in Times Square...pretty cool.I just got back from the polls with my two young daughters. I brought them with me to teach that voting helps create social change. I also brought them with me to start the habit of voting early. All the research tells us voting is a habit, so I want to start them early.Today I will be following two things—my husband Scott Kleeb's Senate campaign and the youth vote here in Nebraska but also on a national level.One of the best articles written this election cycle about the youth vote was from Anna Quindlen over at Newsweek (mike wrote about this early in the week). The sentence below from Anna sums up what all of us who have worked on the youth vote have been saying for years—that young people are voting and since their generation is huge and since voting for a party becomes a habit (see exhibit A: young people that first voted for Regan continued voting for Republicans helping secure a majority for them for years) Democrats are poised not only to win this year but to hold on to a majority of seats for a long time:
The bottom line is that the net effect of young people's enthusiasm about Obama is likely to outstrip his candidacy. There's data suggesting that once people vote they will vote again, making it a civic habit, and that party affiliation tends to remain unchanged from a relatively early age. The young Democrats voting today will be the middle-aged Democrats voting tomorrow. As Norman Ornstein wrote more than 20 years ago, the party that secures the youth vote secures the power for the next generation.
Be back soon with an update on my first stop in Lincoln to make calls to young voters!P.S. I do feel big and strong...