What makes for a hot national election? Hot issues, for one, like the
war in Iraq, a swooning economy, the debate over health care, and
global warming and U.S. energy policy. Those meaty topics are all front
and center in the 2008 race for the White House. Still, not much on the
big national tote board is especially new. So what makes this election
different from those past?
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For one, it is the way that younger voters are starting to respond to
those issues of the day and the candidates they believe are best able
to solve the country's problems, including the first black man and the
first woman with any realistic chance of heading the national ticket of
a major political party. As a result, newly minted voters all over the
United States are engaged in the political process like they have never
been before.
After years of stolid apathy, the change is refreshing, and look no further than Rutgers University for evidence of the surge.
To
wit: Yesterday marked the beginning of a weeklong student-led effort —
backed by the university's Eagleton Institute of Politics' Youth
Political Participation Program — to build on unusually high young
voter participation in the nation's primaries and carry that momentum
into the general election. Should the initiative prove successful,
along with others like it around the country, it is foreseeable that
voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds could eclipse the record 52
percent of those who showed up for the 1972 presidential race, the
first year that 18-year-olds were allowed to vote.
That would be a major victory.
Voters
are a fickle lot, even in their most involved of moments. Only slightly
more than half of registered voters turn out for typical presidential
elections, for example, and participation is even lower in state and
local elections.
Meanwhile, young voters' reputation for apathy
is based on their past performance; although polls consistently show
that a large majority in the 18 to 24 age category say they will vote,
the opposite is regularly true, contributing to the lowest
participation rate of any age group. The hope is that this year the
results will be different. In the latest Politics and Public Service
poll by Harvard University's Institute of Politics, 61 percent of 18-
to 24-year-olds say they will "definitely" vote this November, an
increase of 15 percent more than the ballots cast in the 2004 general
election.
Of course, it remains to be seen if those forecasts
will hold up. But anecdotal evidence suggests that a keen interest in
this year's election might just push more young voters to the polls.
Let's hope so and that it's a trend. There is reason for optimism on
that front. The activity at Rutgers hints that something unique is
building.
Just this week alone the effort dubbed "Vote 2008 Week"
is holding a "How to Run a Voter Registration Drive" workshop; a
conference on service and civic engagement sponsored by the state
Commission on Higher Education and the Governor's Office on
Volunteerism, and a "Vote Slam" open-mic night for political
expression, among voter-drive activities.
"There is a sense that
the candidates are paying attention," said Sarah Clader, a Rutgers
senior and an organizer of the campus movement. "Students from across
the political spectrum are involved. It's really exciting to have that
much enthusiasm."
Indeed. So here's to seeing all of that energy
and high-flying hope play out in a record youth turnout on Election
Day. Nothing would be finer that to see those voters finally flex their
muscle.
