The youth vote
Adam Nichols
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
This is a transformational moment in American history; not just because the country has a black president, but because of the number of young people voting for the first time. Research shows that once people vote for the first time, they will continue to vote for the rest of their lives. More than 2.5million young people downloaded registration forms from the American site www.rockthevote.com, which tries to inspire young people to vote. I found it very moving to see young people, black and white, queuing round the block from 5am to vote in the US elections, simply to make a difference to their world. In a country where more people vote in the Big Brother elections than vote in the general election this is particularly inspiring. Obama did a fantastic job in engaging with young people by using the tools they use to engage with each other - Facebook, texting, MySpace. And it wasn’t in a “hi kids!”” manner, just an intelligent man gracefully explaining why he wanted to be important to them, and why voting would help him to help them.
A friend of mine was in the US a couple of months ago and visited local McCain and Obama campaign HQs. He told me: “The McCain headquarters was peopled by earnest, 40+ party workers who were doing what they had done many times before. “I walked into the Obama offices and it was full of young people. As soon as I walked in I knew he’d won.”
