Tuesday, January 15th, 2008...7:27 am
Don’t Worry, It’s Not a Big College Town
Years ago, a couple of us worked the U of A to register voters. I knew that one of the candidates that year had a program where they contacted newly registered voters. I thought it would be helpful to give them the names of the folks that we had registered that day, 110 of them.
Instead of being happy that we registered these folks and brought them the names, we were told by a staffer, “College students? They don’t vote.” Never mind that they registered so that they could vote in that upcomming election.
Unfortunately, I see the same attitude in Dana’s latest post over at Democratic Diva. She talks about Hillary Clinton’s strength among older women, and dismisses Barack Obama’s strength among younger voters since she seems to think they won’t vote anyway.
Not only is this attitude short sighted, it doesn’t seem to have been the attitude of Clinton’s campaign in Iowa or New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, Clinton did better than Obama among young professional and working women precicely because her campaign did a better job working this group than Obama did (whereas in Iowa, Obama’s campaign specifically reached out to this group and he carried it).
God help us if Clinton’s Arizona campaign is counting on certain people not voting.
8 Comments
January 15th, 2008 at 8:18 am
The more “Democratic Diva” posts I read, the more I lean toward Obama.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Give her a break… Who among us can claim that they have never gone ga ga over a candidate and then proceeded to torture logic to ensure their election?
I think she is just really exited about Hill. She went to Iowa and Nevada to canvass for her (for fucks sake). I cannot say I have knocked on a single door, so to her I say kudos (even though I am voting for Obama).
January 15th, 2008 at 10:10 am
They think that college folks don’t vote, what about all of the ’stoners’ that are backing Ron Paul??? Talk about a group that traditionally doesn’t vote! Yet he seems to be getting some of them to put down their pipes, bongs, and roach clips long enough to get them posting signs everywhere.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
You are completely right Tedski. Senators’ Obama and Clinton both won with the youth vote. Its disheartening to see people dismiss reasons why they won.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Now give me a break- I want the young people to vote and I love that they turned out in Iowa and New Hampshire and I hope they do in every state. The point I was trying to make is who is registered is registered, you can’t register the day of the election. The point I was trying to make is that senior women actually younger than senior women in Arizona is a very large block of voters and the youth block is not as large to pull out a win for Obama. This is just a prediction. If you read my posts from being in Iowa I was excited about the huge surge in voter turn out and I would guess this will continue. I am proudly supporting Hillary, I am a volunteer that’s it. At the end of the day I am a loyal democrat that has volunteered thousands of hours to get people to vote. That is and always will be my number one priority for democrats to vote. Including the young people. I was only making a prediction…to think I am not wanting young people to turn out and vote is far from realitiy.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I’ve known Dana for years and she is as committed as anyone at getting everyone to vote, whether they’re supporting her chosen candidate or not.
I have no doubt about Dana’s commitment to the youth vote.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Tedski, that’s exactly what they’re thinking over in Hillaryland. There are essentially 2 types of active Democrats: Party insiders and activists. The former group is comprised of big donors, professional consultants, non-profit types, and miscellaneous cocktail party chatterers. Nothing wrong with these folks, but they operate in a rarified little bubble where they pretty much only encounter people like themselves. This creates an echo chamber wherein they are able to believe fairy tales like “Hillary Clinton isn’t a polarizing figure anymore. Everyone’s gotten past it now. Once people get to know her better they’ll like her. They will!”
The latter group are the people who knock on doors, make the phone calls, and do all the grunt work that gets candidates elected. We also talk to regular people. All the time. We see how much she is still loathed by a not insignificant group of people. They haven’t gotten over it and they will come out to vote against her, with a vengeance. For god’s sake, they’re still fighting the Civil War in parts of this country, and yet these people think that wingnuts will forget they hate “Hitlery”.
They thought they were going to thrust Queen Hillary upon us and the dumb yokels in the flyovers would just get in line because the name is Clinton. They miscalculated. And if she gets the nod I will at least console myself with the prospect of those Clintonistas having to put lots unaccustomed miles on their expensive shoes.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Joel said it perfectly.