Why Obama gets the Youth Vote

Interesting story:

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While enthusiastic Democrats of all ages produced a 90% increase in turnout for the first caucuses, the number of young voters was up half again as much: 135%. The kids preferred Obama over the next-closest competitor by more than 4 to 1.

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Obama is the only candidate in either party who is viewed favorably by a majority of young people, and he has half again as much support as his nearest competitor, Democrat or Republican.

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In South Carolina, Obama drew more under-30 votes than all Republican candidates combined, according to exit polls.

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If you want to feel old, just tell a group of teenagers today that you can remember a time when the Clintons were hip. There was this guy on TV, see, called Arsenio Hall, and Bill Clinton went on wearing sunglasses and playing a saxophone, and, well, no, it wasn't on YouTube — this was before most people had heard of the Internet — oh, never mind. There's nothing new, for today's young people, about a Clinton replacing a Bush.

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His campaign is crawling with cool young people, and the candidate fits right in. We've yet to see Obama flustered or harried; instead, he gives off the enigmatic Zen confidence of the guy who is picked first for every game.

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He tells young people they can make a difference, and they decide to vote, thus making a difference. "Hope is the thing with feathers," as Emily Dickinson put it, and if Obama can make it fly, it can have deep implications in a society primed to follow the passions of youth.

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When young people get involved, they tend to stay involved. The graybeards of today's Democratic Party were once the inspired youth of the New Frontier, or Clean for Gene McCarthy, or bell-bottomed foot soldiers for George McGovern. Scan the crowd at an Obama rally, squint, and you just might see the future.

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