The Youth Vote, Stupid!

The best part of the Gallup poll released today is that Kerry leads Bush among likely voters aged 18-29 by a margin of 60-40!

Age Bush Kerry

18-29 40 60
30-49 52 41
50-64 49 47
65+ 44 52


We need kids to turnout in the fall, and we shouldn't just ignore them, they very well could turn the election our way!

I am sure "the kids" love him and his show as much as I do. My uncle and I were talking about that yesterday. He thinks that Stewart will have a great influence on young voters.

that concern the youth vote more than other groups.

For example, take FCC regulations. This is something that really pisses off younger people, especially males. Many in this group listen to Howard Stern.

If Kerry doesn't start talking about a plan to bring the troops home, young kids our age who are dying over there for Bush's idiocy, he'll lose much of the youth vote to Nader.

I'm in my 40's and I'ld really like to know what is wrong with my generation. Can we really be bribed with that tax credit that came in the mail. Do they really not care about anything but how much of a tax cut they can get?

I don't get it. Thank goodness for the younger generation. My generation must be hopeless.

Baby Boomers.

I am so freakin' over the vast majority of Baby Boomers and their hypocritical nonsense.

Smoke the pot they have in their house and you get punished because drugs are wrong.

Listen to them talk about their wild hippy days while they sip lattes in front of their BMW.

Read Rolling Stone and defy them to be able to quantify anything culturally without comparing it to something out of the sixties.

They started out as Jerry Garcia and became Huey Lewis for goodness sakes.

Watch the fat forty year old men roll up to the bar on their Harleys thinking they still look cool.

Listen to them spout the same nonsense about the young punks and skater kids that their parents spouted about their look and styles.

They start off voting for JFK and end up voting for Raygun and Bush.

The wake up every mornin and look hypocrisy in the mirror.

The sad thing is that they do not even realize it.

_

A sell-out crowd.

....that for some it really was just sex, drugs and rock and roll and when it was over it was really over. That's not everybody, though. A lot of the people who are still toiling for social justice are babyboomers. That said, I loved my son's (age 25) reaction to the whole primary period. He was leaning Dean. We were for Clark, but he has his own mind and his cultural group is the jamband community, meaning the choices were really between Dean and Kucinich. When it became apparent that Kerry was the guy he announced, "I'm all about Kerry now." He knows what's important and that nothing is more important than getting rid of Bush.

But I still thought I was going to get flamed by a lot of the old hippy crowd that have kept the faith.

If we are political active the 30-something but especially the 20ish folks seem to either be completely radical or extremely pragmatic.

There just appears to be no in between.

What is the deal with the jamband community? I am woefully out of touch being an old Gen X postpunker who use to hang with skater punks back in the day.

+

is that we came of age under RayGun, and his White House of criminals, not to mention Pat Robertson's run for Prez, the Moral Majority, Doing nothing about AIDS, not to mention record deficits of the 80s, leverage buyouts, S&L Scandals, hostile takeovers, and government firing of union workers. Why the Hell is the majority of my generation voting Republican? I just don't get it. Did us kids in the 80s, who were little more than gofers at work really buy into that "Me Decade" bulshit?

The Kool Aide in the hair, trying to look like Billy Idol and Cyndi Lauper, must've seeped into their brains. I was smart. I used Bleach, and I had more muscles than Billy Idol (which wasn't really a feat)! So there!

I might post this for comments in the DU lounge tomorrow after I have had time to think about it.

I grew up in a small Southeast Ga town raised pretty much by my grandparents.

I was a white suburban punk trapped in a rural hell.

I wanted out so bad.

After college I started teaching in Atlanta. I had to go back home because I ended up in so much debt doing Substitute teaching and listening to asshole Principals laugh when I told them I was a male History teacher with no coaching experience. I was a dime a dozen trying to get in teaching Secondary Ed Social Studies.

I had the flannel and the tatoos and I hung out at the 40-watt club and I smoked the shit on the front porch of my buddies house making Low Country Boil and drinking Rolling Rock.

I wanted out again so bad.

So, I went to paralegal school thinking that I had the research experience with my history degree and ended up oddly enough getting hired doing computer tech support for a software company that made software for you guessed it lawyers.

I even met a woman I love and we got married.

We love each other and we had a child.

So, there I sat with a kid in the asshole Burbs of Atlanta hating everything about the place I lived.

Sure, I gave to progressive organizations and I fought and campaigned and did my part. Or at least I like to think I did.

Sure, I never owned the BMW but I did like Iced Lattes and could not help look back on pictures of me with spiked hair and ripped t-shirts and my old black Chucks thinking was I becoming one of those fucks I hated?

I hopped around jobs like everyone in the tech world has to right before the layoffs come down or the funding runs out. It is the way of things. But at least I like what I do. I dick around with computers and after the manager promotion went back to tech Unix Sys Admin role quick because I hated it. But still I wondered if I was becoming just another asshole.

When CNN where I worked looked like they were going to cut after the AOL merger, I jumped to Northern VA. I hated the idea but my wife was practical and right. Where the hell has the tech jobs and great school systems? Did I really want to send my kid to a private school so they could get an education?

So we moved and I worked for a defense company but in their business not weapons divisions. I still felt dirty. I hated it and I got out and work for a cable company doing work on the VoIP team as a Unix Sys Admin.

Still, I sit in a big house in Northern Va, richie territory. I still ain't got the BMW but my wife has a Volvo station wagon. I have an old Honda.

I still wear Vans and listen to hardcore punk.

But am I just another old fart sold out?

Am I just organizing and contributing to Dem and other orgs to soothe my feelings of guilt?

Why the fuck does it take so much money now for me to give a life to my kids that I would not feel ashamed of if I compared it to the life my grandfather gave me?

I don't know anymore.

I do something I really enjoy but still I don't have any answers to my own questions tonight.


_

and the Phish phans and now all kind of music is gathered under one big tent. There are people with differing views and philosophies, and plenty who are still all about sex, drugs and various kinds of music, but as a group they're pretty crunchy granola and Dean and Kucinich were their favorite candidates overall. It's really a nice scene, actually. Not as heavily political as our generation was, but they didn't have as much reason...until now.

In the Northeast they have an organization called Strangers Helping Strangers that collects food for the hungry at shows. This same group is now starting a voter registration drive. So, some of the younger folks are trying as hard as they can.

:kick:

That margin should be bigger.40% for Bush is 40% too much! Yeaarrgggh!

My generation is essentially a bunch of moderate populists. In some ways, we mirror our grandparents' political philosophy, though we tend to be more economically conservative and socially liberal than them.

20 somethings care about: being able to get ok jobs and raise a family within the next ten years. College education and student debt is a part of that. We're generally pro-choice, but many of us (myself included) are pro-life, we tend to not really have a big problem with guns--though there are pockets of gun control supporters, especially as it relates to school shootings, we're ok with religion, and we're (and this is the most important thing, sadly) part of the consumer-generation. We like McDonalds, we don't care if it gives us heart attacks, and we think the people who are suing them are stupid for eating every meal there in the first place.

Internationally, we had a world view before September 11th. Generally, average 20 somethings have gotten the benefits of free trade (the bills are slowly beginning to pile up though), and not faced the obstacles. Therefore, we generally like international cooperation. However, we view September 11th as an act of war, and therefore think any action taken in response, be it with international help or not, is in self-defense.

My guess, is that my generation would vote 50% for Kerry, 40% for Bush and 10% for Nader (unfortunately there are a lot of people who feel guilty about being privledged and try to atone for their sins by voting for Nader).

And, probably only 40 percent of us will show up.

If I were the Democratic Party, I'd be at the senior homes and the AARP meetings--the elderly still vote!

Is going on in my age group? (30-49)

I am the poorest I've ever been, I have a young son I don't want to someday be drafted and I don't want to live the rest of my life in a country constantly at war.

Gotta get this age group to wisen up!