COMMENTARY | As President Barack Obama contemplates his prospects for the 2012 election, he surely must be anxious about the fact that a key constituency that helped to elect him is 2008, young people, are abandoning him in droves, according to Michael Barone.
This phenomenon was apparent in the 2010 midterm elections as the youth vote abandoned the Democrats, thanks to the weak economy and poor job prospects, Barone reports that this process is accelerating and deepening.
In 2008, the Pew Poll indicated that millennial voters, those younger than 30, voted 66 percent to 32 percent for Obama and self-identified as Democrat by a 60 percent to 32 percent margin. In 2009, the Democratic edge in white millennials had dropped from seven points to three. By 2010 white millennials had moved into the Republicans by one point. In 2011 the Republican edge among this group had lengthened to 11 points.
The abandonment of President Obama and the Democrats by young people can be easily explained by the economy. Two and a half years after cheering themselves hoarse and fainting in the aisles for Obama, scenes lovingly described by Jason Mattera in his book "Obama Zombies," young people are more often than not living with their parents, working at menial jobs if they are working at all, and wondering if they should just stay in school until things get better.
Barone also suggests a more cultural divide between the millennial generation and the Obama style of governance.
"In the wake of the 2008 election, I argued that there was a tension between the way millennials lived their lives -- creating their own iPod playlists, designing their own Facebook pages -- and the one-size-fits-all, industrial-era welfare-state policies of the Obama Democrats.
"Instead of allowing millennials space in which they can choose their own futures, the Obama Democrats' policies have produced a low-growth economy in which their alternatives are limited and they are forced to make do with what they can scrounge."
This provides an opportunity for Obama's Republican opponent, so long as his or her campaign emphasizes economic freedom and self reliance, which will likely be the case since economic rather than social issues seem to be dominating the run up to the 2012 presidential campaign.
Which Republican candidate would best appeal to the youth vote? That remains to be seen, but it is very clear that the romance is over with Barack Obama.
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