View: Youth apathy and the polling place

WILMINGTON, Del., July 5 (UPI) -- Attention college students and recent graduates: the American political cognoscenti have written you off. According to political consultants and analysts on both sides, young people don't vote, making them irrelevant in the political process.

At a recent American University forum, student Justin Meyer asked political analyst Stuart Rothenberg if 18-24-year-olds could be a crucial swing vote in the 2002 elections.

A noted political prognosticator, Rothenberg sarcastically answered: "I'm sorry, but you're irrelevant. You don't matter." This is not an uncommon view.

The other political experts at the forum, all of whom were left of center, chuckled and nodded their agreement with Rothenberg's observation. A second student approached the microphone and explained his strong involvement in politics since he was in junior high school only to be called "an aberration" by Rothenberg.

That their characterization is wrong-headed is proven by exit poll and U.S. census data from 2000.

Young people, as shown by both measures, vote in similar proportions as the currently "hot" demographic groups -- Latinos and African-Americans yet few if any pundits point out the mediocre turnout of those groups.

If these demographic groups deserve our attention and campaign effort -- and they do -- then so should young people.

The political pundits' general explanation of why few young people bother to vote is that they are apathetic about world events. This argument is false. A glance at college campuses today reveals that students are on the front lines in the ideological war for the future of this country.

There are student groups for virtually every political issue -- labor rights, the environment, women's rights, both sides of the abortion debate, free trade, and so on. If college students are engaged on the issues, why don't they vote? Apathy is clear not the reason.

There are many examples that in fact prove the ability of young people to vote in sufficient numbers to influence the outcome of crucial elections.

In the 2000 election, the College Republicans at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota generated 177 votes for Republican congressional candidate Mark Kennedy, who defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. David Minge, D-Minn., by only 155 votes -- 22 less than his young supporters delivered.

In the same election Republican Rob Simmons unseated Rep. Sam Gejdenson, D-Conn., by less than 3,000 votes. National GOP groups provided more than 50 young campaign volunteers per week to the Simmons' campaign.

Decisive participation by young Americans on behalf of the right is not new. Ronald Reagan won Massachusetts by only 3,000 votes in 1980, when the college GOP youth effort in the state generated more than 5,000 absentee ballots.

To be sure, the Green Party has its young supporters but it may be the exception that proves the rule.

The shift of student support from the Democrats to the Greens may in part also result from their neglect of young would-be voters. In 2000, Nader garnered two and-a-half times more votes from 18-29 year olds than from any other age category. The Republican Party and many conservative activist organizations, however, demonstrate growing support for campus and young professional groups. No surprises here, given recent examples of electoral success by campus Republicans.

As this small set of examples demonstrates, young Americans do vote and can make a significant difference in electoral outcomes. Instead of dismissing college students, political pundits and decision-makers ought to figure out how to engage them in the process.

Good grassroots campaigners know that people vote when a candidate and his message energize them. If politicians reach out to young people and give them a reason to go to the polls, they will. A serious and concerted effort to engage students and recent graduates in the political process would pay huge dividends in present and future election cycles.

The claim that politicians need not pay attention to young people's concerns because they do not vote is anti-democratic and nonsensical. As any marketer knows, most people commit to product brands before they reach the age of 30. Political party affiliations are ideological "brands" and the most effective time to "sell" people on them is when they are young.

(Jeff Berkowitz at jberkowitz@isi.org is director of marketing at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative campus organization. He also is senior adviser and Web site editor for GenerationGOP.com.)