voting
Change
Where does it come from? Does it flow from the top or seep up from the bottom? Is it measured by pieces of legislation, or societal benchmarks, or events, or hearts and minds? What causes it? Anger? Hope? Desperation? Fear? You could answer yes to any of these and be right. The fact is that change is a very amorphous concept. It's difficult to define because there are so many types. We've all noticed how Democratic presidential candidates are falling over themselves to prove how much they can bring. They're doing it because it's the message we want to hear; otherwise, they'd emphasize other things, like John Kerry dwelled on Vietnam and George W. Bush constantly tried to scare us. In other words, our demand for change is driving the narrative of this election. This very desire is significant in itself. What's equally significant is how we express it.
No matter what happens with the nomination, we can take comfort how far we've come as an electorate. The incessant fearmongering and lying of the Bush administration didn't numb and dumb the American people into submission; we rebelled, recognized evil when we saw it and are now trying to fix our mistake. We're using new and evolving tools at our disposal, most notably the Internet, which I'd argue has turned from background noise into a driving force.
Election 2008: Iowa, New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama....... and us
So Hillary beat Obama 39-37 tonight. Stunning upset. Hats off. But there's one demographic she can't seem to reach: us. As in, ages 18-24. Every other age bracket, she's doing fine.
According to CNN exit polls, we broke 60-22 in favor of Obama. That's on top of Iowa where the entrance polls said ages 17-29 went 57-11 in favor of Obama. Those are outright landslides. And boy does it matter --- turnout is up, WAY UP. New Hampshire --- youth turnout DOUBLES. Iowa --- youth turnout TRIPLES. So we have what amounts to a tidal wave of millennial support for Obama; we're seriously the backbone of this guy's campaign right now. How come? There's gotta be a damn good reason, right?
It's because we want change. Yeah, I know, no fuckin duh. There's been a lot of cranky debate about what exactly "change" is lately. Well, I'll take a stab at it: change means not having a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. For example, I was born in 1985, so that means the last time a Bush or Clinton wasn't my president, I was in preschool. Some of you guys around here are '87 and '88 babies... You were in DIAPERS!
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Can Ya Spare Me a Vote, Sir
Or an iPod?
That’s what New York University students said they’d take in exchange for their right to vote in the next presidential election, a recent survey by an NYU journalism class found.
Twenty percent said they’d exchange their vote for an iPod touch. But 66 percent said they’d forfeit their vote for a free [tuition] ride to NYU. And half said they’d give up the right to vote forever for $1 million.
It'd be easy to criticize the people who'd forfeit their vote in exchange for stuff and conclude that this means our generation is selfish and not civic-minded. But you'd be full of shit. What this really means is we're practical to a fault. The system's been cold and manipulative since the day we were born; that we don't have faith in participation shows we perfectly understand the value of one vote. It's a shame, but that has more to do with what we've grown up seeing -- Monica, 9/11 and Iraq.