Mary Mostert
Giving young voters a reason to vote
By Mary Mostert
Last week I was invited to teach four Utah Valley State University classes because of the research I have done for my soon-to-be released book on the subject of the United States Constitution. During the course of the class, I asked the students, if they could vote in the California Recall election that they would vote for. While not all the students said they would vote, probably 90% of them indicated they would vote and 100% of those who said they would vote said they would vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It has been obvious to me for some time that Schwarzenegger has done something I haven’t seen done since the days of my youth — which was a very long time ago. He’s brought a lot of young people out to listen to political speeches. And, as we all know, as goes California, the rest of the nation usually soon follows. So, I suspect, if large numbers of young people change the politics of California, we may very well find that national politics may follow.
As of this writing, 2.1 million California absentee voters have already cast their ballots. This, according to Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, is 30% higher than the absentee ballots a mere 11 months ago, in November 2002, when Governor Gray Davis was re-elected. In that election, 7,738,821 people voted. Only 47.4% of them, or 3,469,025, voted for Gray Davis.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The boost in participation is likely to come from younger, occasional voters drawn to the polls by Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.” There are, since last year, 400,000 new registered voters and many of them are younger voters. DiCamillo called these new voters “occasional voters, those voters who have been aroused by this election.” I suspect the Democrats are HOPING they are only occasional voters. The younger generation, in the words of DiCamillo are “less likely to be risk-averse and much more willing to upset the apple cart and change the status quo." That another way of saying they are very apt to vote for Arnold. Is this, as many are saying, merely because they are willing to “upset the apple cart” by voting for a Hollywood star? I don’t think so. I’ve been writing about the younger generation for quite some time.
In fact, I told the classes I taught last week that they are by far the best-educated and most knowledgeable generation the world has every seen, contrary to what they have been told all their lives.
About 10 years ago, a friend of mine in California, who was then director of research and evaluation for the largest school district in the Sacramento area, told me that young people today could get more information out of one good video on a subject than a Ph.D. would have 50 years ago on the same subject. Young people today see a lot of videos. While some may not be worth much, some of them are.
While the younger generation has a lot of information, they are also are simply not listening to their elders. They don’t read newspapers. They don’t believe anything they hear from traditional politicians. They know they are not being told the truth.
In fact, I’ve been saying for several years that the best hope for the future we have is that the younger generation aren’t listening. If they were, they would be able to recite the same massive amount of misinformation their parents can recite from TV, newspapers and radio.
Of course, there is a negative side to all this. Since they have a tendency to not believe anything they hear, they usually also don’t believe the truth either when they happen to stumble across it. The solution to this is relatively simple. This is the information age. While that has allowed huge amounts of misinformation to float around, it also has enabled us to have, for the very first time, actual transcripts of what people say. We have, for example, all the actual letters of George Washington on the Internet. We have the actual notes James Madison wrote during the debates of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. We also have available transcripts of everything said by George W. Bush and his cabinet officers available. We really don’t HAVE to argue interminably about what he said in his State of the Union address about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We can go read it and find out exactly what he said.
Of course, that may require something more than reaching over and turning on the TV or radio. The media is not going to actually tell you where to find the original source of a story, since that would eliminate your need for their services. After all, that is how the media, political commentators and political handlers make money. Once you know what was actually said, you can decide for yourself what to think about it without someone else telling you what to think. When I said that last week to college students, they were immediately interested. One slouched over, turned off young man sat up and said, “How do I do that? I am so sick and tired of all the crap I am hearing on TV! Where do I find the transcripts?” Others grabbed their pens and started making notes as I told him. In November 2002, only 51% of California’s voters actually voted. Only 47.4% of that 51% voted for Gray Davis, which means Davis was the choice of 23.7% (or 3,469,025) of the 34 million people of California.
I suspect if the young people of California feel they have been given a reason to vote in large numbers, we are probably all going to have to learn to say “Governor Schwarzenegger.”
© Mary Mostert
Last week I was invited to teach four Utah Valley State University classes because of the research I have done for my soon-to-be released book on the subject of the United States Constitution. During the course of the class, I asked the students, if they could vote in the California Recall election that they would vote for. While not all the students said they would vote, probably 90% of them indicated they would vote and 100% of those who said they would vote said they would vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It has been obvious to me for some time that Schwarzenegger has done something I haven’t seen done since the days of my youth — which was a very long time ago. He’s brought a lot of young people out to listen to political speeches. And, as we all know, as goes California, the rest of the nation usually soon follows. So, I suspect, if large numbers of young people change the politics of California, we may very well find that national politics may follow.
As of this writing, 2.1 million California absentee voters have already cast their ballots. This, according to Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, is 30% higher than the absentee ballots a mere 11 months ago, in November 2002, when Governor Gray Davis was re-elected. In that election, 7,738,821 people voted. Only 47.4% of them, or 3,469,025, voted for Gray Davis.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The boost in participation is likely to come from younger, occasional voters drawn to the polls by Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.” There are, since last year, 400,000 new registered voters and many of them are younger voters. DiCamillo called these new voters “occasional voters, those voters who have been aroused by this election.” I suspect the Democrats are HOPING they are only occasional voters. The younger generation, in the words of DiCamillo are “less likely to be risk-averse and much more willing to upset the apple cart and change the status quo." That another way of saying they are very apt to vote for Arnold. Is this, as many are saying, merely because they are willing to “upset the apple cart” by voting for a Hollywood star? I don’t think so. I’ve been writing about the younger generation for quite some time.
In fact, I told the classes I taught last week that they are by far the best-educated and most knowledgeable generation the world has every seen, contrary to what they have been told all their lives.
About 10 years ago, a friend of mine in California, who was then director of research and evaluation for the largest school district in the Sacramento area, told me that young people today could get more information out of one good video on a subject than a Ph.D. would have 50 years ago on the same subject. Young people today see a lot of videos. While some may not be worth much, some of them are.
While the younger generation has a lot of information, they are also are simply not listening to their elders. They don’t read newspapers. They don’t believe anything they hear from traditional politicians. They know they are not being told the truth.
In fact, I’ve been saying for several years that the best hope for the future we have is that the younger generation aren’t listening. If they were, they would be able to recite the same massive amount of misinformation their parents can recite from TV, newspapers and radio.
Of course, there is a negative side to all this. Since they have a tendency to not believe anything they hear, they usually also don’t believe the truth either when they happen to stumble across it. The solution to this is relatively simple. This is the information age. While that has allowed huge amounts of misinformation to float around, it also has enabled us to have, for the very first time, actual transcripts of what people say. We have, for example, all the actual letters of George Washington on the Internet. We have the actual notes James Madison wrote during the debates of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. We also have available transcripts of everything said by George W. Bush and his cabinet officers available. We really don’t HAVE to argue interminably about what he said in his State of the Union address about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We can go read it and find out exactly what he said.
Of course, that may require something more than reaching over and turning on the TV or radio. The media is not going to actually tell you where to find the original source of a story, since that would eliminate your need for their services. After all, that is how the media, political commentators and political handlers make money. Once you know what was actually said, you can decide for yourself what to think about it without someone else telling you what to think. When I said that last week to college students, they were immediately interested. One slouched over, turned off young man sat up and said, “How do I do that? I am so sick and tired of all the crap I am hearing on TV! Where do I find the transcripts?” Others grabbed their pens and started making notes as I told him. In November 2002, only 51% of California’s voters actually voted. Only 47.4% of that 51% voted for Gray Davis, which means Davis was the choice of 23.7% (or 3,469,025) of the 34 million people of California.
I suspect if the young people of California feel they have been given a reason to vote in large numbers, we are probably all going to have to learn to say “Governor Schwarzenegger.”
© Mary Mostert
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
