Conservatism’s cool
Posted on : Jul-Fri-2010 | By : dtager | In : Outside Articles
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By NICHOLAS J. ROHRHOFF
In mid-term elections, voter turnout defines success. To win, it is imperative to target likely voters and mobilize sympathetic yet diffident constituencies to the polls. Barack Obama’s successful courtship of young voters in 2008 cast John McCain’s GOP as the party of yesterday — a group of old, white men out of touch with an increasingly diverse and engaged youth — never to regain electoral clout. This was not a triumph in the battle of ideas.
Because the adolescent prerequisite of peer affirmation to consider anything persists in this age group, conservative policies were not even entertained by many young voters as potential solutions to America’s problems.
The Obama campaign manipulated this phenomenon brilliantly by wooing young voters not with policy prescriptions but retail politics. Before the Iowa caucuses, he skipped an AARP event to attend a hip-hop concert. And he was far ahead of other candidates in high-tech outreach through e-mail, YouTube and social networking media. Read Full Article!
