Dan Nied sees a record number of under-30 voters turning out Tuesday. Enough, possibly, to pick the president. Needless to say, the actions of his peers make him a proud 25-year old boy.
This presidential election may come down to the sloven and lazy. Look out for the vote of the leaders of tomorrow, the slackers of today.
Wait in the poll parking lot Tuesday and listen for the bass thumping three blocks away. Feel your jaw hit the ground as Eminem blasts, from the car speakers, the sweet sounds of a free America.
This is our right to choose. It is time we used it.
This election won’t come down to hanging chads this time, because we know how to vote. We know that you gotta get that sucker punched out really hard to make democracy work.
We are the young. We will be bringing you the president Tuesday.
Because of the importance of this election, the seeming disappearance of decent entry-level work and the back-of-your-mind feeling that there might be a draft by this time next year, voters between 18 and 30 have registered in record numbers this year.
Who young voters pick is important, but not the story here. The story is that a large turnout can be the exact edge George Bush or John Kerry needs to win this election.
You think you have a grasp on who will win? Well, you think you at least have some idea based on the polls? Well consider that, while most polls have Bush and Kerry in a statistical tie among the popular vote, those polls are conducted through listed telephone numbers, which are land lines. Many potential voters under 30 have given up on that primitive form of communication. Cell phones are the way to go. Cell phone numbers aren’t listed. Therefore the opinions of many young voters are not being reflected in the polls.
Take me for example. I am 25, and this would have been my second time voting (If there wasn’t an error in the delivery of my Michigan absentee ballot. The error being that I didn’t get it and they didn’t get my application, which was mailed four weeks ago. Funny how that works, eh). Well I have only an unlisted cell phone number. Every single under-30 person I know who lives on their own has no land line. None have been polled. None have voiced an opinion. A large majority will vote.
Assuming there are millions of others like us (and there are), that could spell doom for someone. Truth be told it is pretty hard to say who.
Common knowledge says that young voters will turn out big for Kerry. But recent polls have refuted that. However, as we know, polls may not be the best indication of the youth vote. Nevertheless, the latest figures have the under-30 vote going for Kerry by as much as 52-42 percent or as little as 49-47 percent.
Either way, this election matters enough to the future of this country that the people that are actually the future of this country will do their best to make the right decision in their vote.
That is a far cry from years past when marginal voter turnout made it easy to paint the youth of America into an apathetic bunch.
Well we are apathetic no more. Come Tuesday Youth will be served.
Ohio resident Claudia Smyczek Raleigh has seen enough political adds to fill her mind with all kinds of partisan crap. She isn't all that happy about it, either.
By Claudia Smyczek Raleigh
Special contributor to 210 West Magazine
At first we found the attention flattering. Visits, phone calls, emails. Then our suitors even sent us messages on TV and radio! Now, however, it’s a little bit stalker-ish. OK, a lot stalker-ish. Seventy visits in two months? If not John or George, it’s their veep candidates, their wives, their children, their veep candidates’ wives and children. Enough is enough!
In case you missed one of the, oh, hundred thousand or so news stories that announced it this year, Ohio is the swing state to end all swing states. A “must-have” for the Bush campaign. A “can’t win without it” for the Kerry campaign. Along with Pennsylvania and Florida, one of the Holy Trinity of states that could go with their 20 or more electoral votes for either candidate in this election. Ohio hasn’t had this much attention since the Kirtland cult murders in the late 80s. And that only lasted a few weeks. This has been going on for a year and a half.
Just what is it about Ohio politics that make it a “swing state”?
Well, the political climate here is representative of the nation as a whole. Ohio’s population breaks down by race almost exactly the same as that of the United States. We also have a mix of urban, suburban and rural that is analogous to the whole country. We have farming, manufacturing, and info and service related jobs in almost the same numbers as the national average. We have an almost equal portion of self-identified Democrats, Republican and independents as the entire US. We have every religious group, and every so-called special interest group, such as large corporations, agribusiness, gun owners, GLBT, feminists, environmentalists, et al. We have slightly more union members than in other states.
In a nutshell, Ohio is the focus of so much political attention because we are a microcosm of the United States of America. We have had a hard four years, losing over 200,000 jobs, many of them well-paid jobs in manufacturing.
The Bush twins, P Diddy, Mary J. Blige, Bruce Springsteen and Leonardo DiCaprio have all been to Ohio this week to campaign, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is on his way. Apparently Martin Sheen, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick all did some fundraiser thing with a group called BOB (Bring Ohio Back) lately. Um, hello? Has no one bothered to tell them Ohio’s not cool? That we’re more known for bowling and pierogies than our hip celebrity scene? That in fact we don’t have a hip celebrity scene? The two most famous people to come out of Ohio in recent decades are Drew Carey and Marilyn Manson. Marilyn Manson is not considered hip in very many circles these days.
But no. In the last year Ohio has turned from the ugly duckling to the beautiful swan. The girl all the boys want to take to the prom. The one that Al Gore gave up on, to his and the Democratic Party’s eternal regret, in 2000. No one is making that mistake again, and so now we have this situation. The one where I can’t turn on the radio or TV or look at the newspaper without being bombarded with campaign ads, polls, and the latest stories of the candidates’ appearances.
The appearances are causing traffic problems on a daily basis. I get distracted driving around town by the thousands of yard signs. My heart practically goes into palpitations every time I see one of those “Protect Marriage” yard signs, urging me to vote for the amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would ban gay marriage. (Gay marriage, by the way, is already banned by not one but two laws on Ohio books. But I digress.) I avoid political conversations with anyone from the opposing side, because I am sick to death of arguing the candidate’s merits. We all made up our minds long ago.
So why, oh why, do the two campaigns linger? Why won’t they just leave us alone? You may assume, from my comments, that I’m not a political person. That I avoid politics all the time and it has been forced upon me in an election year. In fact the opposite is
true. I love politics and government and international relations and history. I follow it closely, in fact in 2000 I worked on a campaign. I have just had enough. I’m all about citizen participation, and I’m thrilled at all the new voter registrations and the high turnout expected this year. I just don’t want to hear about it any more.