Youth Politics

There’s an easy, sure-fire way to reach the young voters, and that’s to visit schools. I’m not really talking about high school and below, but what I meant is colleges and universities. I’m talking about a vast youth population all situated in one place, easily able to attend any speech or talk held on campus. I’m talking about going to the voters rather than having them go to you. People complain that young voters don’t come out to the polls, well what if the polls came to them? If the candidates want young voters to actually care about the topics or even get them to recognize who you are and what you believe in, than you’d better go out of your way to introduce yourself to these people. Those ages 18-24 is a big demographic; why would you skimp out on them? There’s no excuse for either party not to visit these schools.

Now I realize a candidate cannot feasibly visit every college campus in the nation. Nor do I expect any candidate to do so. But even if you visit just one college per every two states, you’re going to reach 25 campuses. If you select the bigger campuses, you’re talking about a potential audience of 10,000 people every time. Easily. Remember that just because a speech is held on campus doesn’t mean only students will attend. You’re looking at 250,000 people, potentially mostly young voters, that you’re reaching. And let’s not forget the press coverage. If a candidate is shown to actually care about what young people think, the people who actually have the most to lose in any given election, then that may draw out a lot more voters from that demographic. It’s a fact that people follow trends. If something isn’t very popular, then a lot of people won’t go with it if only because of that fact.

I realize that youths don’t have very much say in government, and we have no real lobbyists. We also don’t have many voices out there speaking on our behalf. But that’s no excuse to ignore us, and if ever a candidate complains about losing by a slim margin, may that person look back at the number of young voters he or she tried to reach out to, and then tell me where the candidate may have snagged a few more votes.

I’ll entertain any questions or concerns via email at crowtche@juniorpolitics.com, or of course you’re always welcome to leave a comment.