Huff Post's Vogel: Why Obama Will Win Iowa

[TeamJordan23]

Why Obama Will Win Iowa

While no one, of course, can predict the actual outcome until the results are reported, there are some pretty suggestive signs---a bit less obvious than Mike Huckabee's "Christmas cross," perhaps, but significant nonetheless---for those who look a bit beneath the surface.

I have been arguing for over a year that most polls and pundits are either missing or dismissing what will be the deciding factor in this election: the youth vote.

Most young voters are never called by pollsters. We have cell phones, not land lines; we are first-time voters; we are independents turned democrats. Therefore, we are mostly unrepresented by the polls and invisible to the news media. We are the voting bloc that is consistently written off. We won't show up. We are apathetic. We'll be watching football. This is the way it has been in recent history, and this is the way it will always be. So the argument goes.

Yet if this is the conventional wisdom, the American establishment is in for a rude awakening on January 3 when the headlines go worldwide that a former community organizer, an African American with an unusual name and the most improbable of stories, is on his way to becoming the next president of the United States.

The reality for those paying attention is that Barack Obama has inspired a movement among young people that is broad, deep, and real. For the past year, we have been organizing, blogging, donating, recruiting, conferencing, mobilizing. The Obama campaign has empowered us and we have responded in an unprecedented way.

The respected and historically accurate Des Moines Register confirmed this reality in its most recent poll, when it was found that an overwhelming 56% of young people ages 18-34 are supporting Senator Obama, compared to just 11% for Hillary Clinton and 16% for John Edwards. These numbers, it should be noted, are among "likely caucusgoers."

This evidence confirms what those of us on the ground have been seeing for the past year: hundreds of thousands of previously turned off young people suddenly seriously involved in a political campaign for the first time. This movement, unlike any political campaign since the excitement and participation generated by Robert F. Kennedy before his assassination in 1968, is described from its participants' own voices in a book I helped put together this past fall. While each story was unique, the theme was clear: Barack Obama resonates for our generation. His post-partisan, grassroots, idealistic, yet practical message makes sense to us. And most of us are more cynical towards politics than naïve. We grew up with the scandals and excesses of the Clinton years and the corruption and myopia of the Bush Administration. For us, Obama doesn't represent a savior; he represents hope.

So we have gone to work for a cause we believe in. We have donated from what little money we have; we have volunteered at the expense of our studies or jobs. We have been an active and crucial part of this movement every step of the way.

Is it likely after the countless hours we have put in that we will suddenly disappear on caucus night?

This is what the pundits would have people believe. This is the cliché that is heard endlessly on CNN and other mainstream media networks. Because it didn't work out for Howard Dean, it won't work out for Obama.

But if the Obama movement has proven anything, it is that it has gone far beyond Dean, Bill Clinton, or any other youth-appealing politician in recent history. It is a movement that has set record after record, from crowd sizes to donations to volunteers.

It is a movement characterized not by passive gazing-on, but active participation. The Obama movement is organized, educated, and ready to be mobilized. In the oft-used chant of the campaign, it is "fired up and ready to go."

Over the past several months we have been overlooked, but beginning January 3 young supporters of Barack Obama are ready to send a long-anticipated message:

We're here. We count. And we will be the difference in Iowa and beyond.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-vogel/why-obama-will-win-iowa_b_79223.html

[gaiilonfong]

1. There you go...EXACTLY RIGHT

What i have been saying for months!

[KingofNewOrleans]

2. He says the pollsters don't call young voter

and then he cites a poll with results from the 18-34 yr olds. How did they get those numbers?

I think to overall thrust is correct. If the newbies turn out Obama wins, if they don't he doesn't.

[TeamJordan23]

3. I would say most 18 - 24s use cell phones only, it likely changes for 25+ who might have landlines.

nm

[KingofNewOrleans]

6. Pollsters have models

and they require contacting x number of each demographic. If they have to make twice as many calls to fill the 18-34 demographic than the over 55 then they do it.
True the 18-34 demographic probably is skewed to the 25-34 portion, but then so will the voters.

[cascadiance]

4. What the article and the author is missing is ANY mention of substance on issues!

This is what is wrong with Obama for me. It is all about style, and little about substance!

I want to hear how he's going to take on corporate America and restore our democracy to the people. Not only does this article not offer any indications of what he would do here. It doesn't offer any substantive stances on anything that we should all be attracted to Obama for championing. Only that they've all worked hard and that he "speaks" for those he's working with.

I appreciate that he and others are working hard for Obama, but before I would want to work hard on something, I don't want to just do it to "win at the polls" or other stylistic things. I want to know how he's going to change America for the better from the tatters its in right now!

Compromise just isn't going to cut it this time around!

[frazzled]

5. Today's NYT article on attendance at Iowa caucuses ....

made me think twice.

Parents of younger children, who need to hire babysitters, don't attend much. People with evening jobs (restaurant workers, health-care workers, etc.) can't come at all. In essence, that must really skew the caucuses to a much older crowd, who have the time and availability.

Perhaps it would be a good thing if more under-34s would balance out the vote there: after all, it's their future. A 22 year old voting tomorrow for a potential president with a potential 8-year administration, would find themselves reaping the benefits (or ills) of that administration at age 30. For a 30 year old, it would take them nearly into middle-age. They should participate.

[tinrobot]

7. Again with the youth vote...

For the past 30-40 years, every election is going to be turned on it's head by the youth vote.

Yet it never really happens.

[Jim Lane]

8. What about Ron Paul?

I've heard, anecdotally, that he's very popular on many campuses. I wouldn't be surprised if younger voters respond to his iconoclasm, and don't focus so much on the substance of his views. A libertarian government would be anathema to many voters' values. Nevertheless -- pardon me if I'm stereotyping -- maybe the younger voters are less likely to pay attention to substance, and more likely to be caught up in the romanticism of a candidate who departs so radically from the political mainstream.

[FrenchieCat]

9. IMAGINE.....

SOME OF THOSE 40% WHO DON'T VOTE NOW

VOTE!

WE JUST NEED A FRACTION OF THEM!