A few years ago I read a very encouraging article that suggested that savvy young voters today would be less likely to be taken in by old-fashioned deceitful political tactics. The plot of the Democratic presidential primary campaign made the Pennsylvania primary the first big test for voters in their late-teens and 20s, and the results are decidedly mixed.
The article I'm referring to was written either during the 2004 or 2006 election seasons. The basic point was that the younger set had been exposed to so many different media marketing strategies so early in their lives that they were far more capable than older adults to see through the muck and find what was tangible, be it good or bad. The ubiquitous Internet was the resource that was to help them cut through the crap and be able to make logical and reasonable decisions based on facts.
Late last year, our nation's youth grabbed onto the Barack Obama's campaign of hope and change, and for good reason. In these times, hope and change are not just trite words brought out of the back of the political closet and dusted off every four years. People really do want significant and tangible change from the way we've been doing things in Washington, D.C. Democrat or Republican, doesn't matter.
Obama and John McCain both sensed this early, which is why Obama is leading among Democrats despite Hillary Clinton's enormous pre-campaign advantage and McCain emerged with the GOP presidential nomination.
Fast-forward to this week. The race for the Democrat nomination has seen Obama in two months reduced from hope and change guru to just another cynical elitist far-left politician who will do whatever he needs to win. He is not what he claimed to be.
Pennsylvania is the first big state primary in which we can measure the reaction of our savvy young Democrat voters since Obama's image was fully blown. He still won their support as a block by large margins, but you can go deeper into the numbers and find results that can be interpreted in ways both encouraging and discouraging.
According to exit polls from Pennsylvania, voters 18-29 favored Obama over Clinton by 60-40 percent. Support for Obama falls by age, as 30-44 favored Obama 53-47 and the rest went for Clinton, who received a staggering 62-38 percent edge from senior citizens.
Breaking the youth vote down further, 18-24-year-olds chose Obama by a whopping 65-35 margin, while that support slipped to 55-45 for those 25-29. Voters 30-39 showed similar support, while those 40 and up strongly favored Clinton.
The bag mixing begins when you break the figures down even more. The 8 percent of the electorate made up of whites 18-29 favored Clinton by 52-48 percent. At ages 30-44 for whites, Clinton won by 58-42. Black voters weren't necessarily broken down by age, but after perusing the results, it looks like 85-90 percent of all black voters went for Obama.
So you have a situation where either whites remain prone to racism in their voting or that white youths have started to catch up to the new Obama narrative, while blacks -- who made up 15 percent of Pennsylvania's electorate -- are steadfastly holding on to hopes of the first African-American president.
While race has sadly been a factor in the Democratic race -- so has sex -- there's something to be said for the latter theory, as exit polls show young whites going for Obama more in Ohio and Texas last month, when Obama's foibles were mainly being bandied about in the conservative media and hadn't gained mainstream attention. Young, maybe savvy, white voters could be slowly edging toward Clinton.
Indiana and North Carolina are next. The basketball hotbeds may or may not produce numbers that can be used for comparison. North Carolina is expected to be an Obama runaway, so comparing the youth vote to Pennsylvania, Ohio or Texas won't make sense. A comparison to another big Obama state, such as South Carolina, might provide a more accurate picture.
Whatever is going on with younger voters, its much too late to impact the primary campaign. But if they really are showing signs of the savvy that was predicted of them, it could have a major effect on the general election campaign. We'll see which candidate best takes advantage.
