Will More Young People Vote in 2008?
You can begin your quest for an answer here.
I had a young man from Florida in my freshman English class in the fall of 2000. I made a point of asking him if he’d voted. He had not.
I had an interesting case study in an advanced rhetoric class at UMKC during the 2000 election. It was a special topics class about the press/politics of the campaign. One of the assignments was to write an op-ed for the Kansas City Star and try to get it published. Several students were published. One particular student was not published. She had written one of the best op-eds I’d ever read from a student in any class–a personal account of her struggle with a nasty disease. She wanted to know why the candidates always discussed health care in terms of older Americans.
The Star turned down her cogent, well-written op-ed because it was “too personal” they said. But that’s a dodge because papers such as the Star publish personal op-eds that speak to current events all the time. The real reason, I suspect, is that her op-ed bucked the master narrative, i.e. who gets sick and who needs help with health care.
And then there’s the other problem: Candidates won’t care much about young voters until young voters start voting. That’s also when the press will begin to care.
Those danged professional journalists at the Star and other mainstream publications strike again. They are clueless jerks! If only they’d follow your directives, perhaps they could achieve the same success in the real world that you have, sir.
Walter… Right on, brother!