Enthusiasm Is On Our Side

CBS News today released a poll which shows some remarkable figures.


35% of voters 18-29 are enthusiastic about a Democratic candidate, compared to just 8 percent enthusiastic about a Republican. Even among Republicans, Barack Obama scores higher at 8%, than does Washington Lobbyist Fred Thompson or Sen. John McCain.

I think that the challenge for the '08 election will not so much be about getting young people to vote in November, but getting them to vote in February for the primary. If people vote in a primary, they are almost guaranteed to vote in the general election. If they don't vote in the primary, they are more likely to feel that the nominee of the party was "thrust" upon them, and aren't going to get enthusiastic come the general election.

A tremendous opportunity is staring young voters in the face this election cycle. While the Republican side is filled with candidates who want to take President Bush's foreign policy even further to the right, in a way that would make Attila the Hun blush; the Democrats are offering genuine change over the 8 years of the Bush administration.

What I would like to see, is an enormous push by young voters to have an influence over who the nominee of our party is. A general election style turnout among voters would mean that we would have a much larger influence over who the next President is going to be; than would any large-scale turnout in the General.

So come Primary day (or primary weeks in the case of Tennessee); call, text, email, harass, beg, or simply club your friends over the head and drag them to the voting booth. Because this election is too important to be left up to the old guard (no offense) of the Democratic party. The new blood, the young voters, are the ones who are going to be most effected by the decisions of our next President, and we have only ourselves to blame if the right nominee is not chosen.

Update: Even More Good News! Read the New York Times Article on the same poll:

"Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll."