I'll Back That Horse

Half as many 18-29 year-old voters came out in 2010 as came out in 2008. That wouldn't have turned the tide last night, I don't think. But I think it does tell us a heck of a lot about the demographic.

Not surprisingly, the young vote goes liberal (58% Democrat yesterday). Now, in 2008, 18% of voters were in that demographic, and this time 9%. In 2008, Obama was polling ahead of McCain, Democrats were projected to take over the Senate and the House, etc. The young vote backed the winning horse, after they had already been told who it would be.

Anecdotally, in 2008, when I voted, I saw several people in my generation at the polls. Yesterday, I was the youngest person in the building by a good 30 years.

This year, the projections were mainly in favor of the GOP, and young voters didn't turn out. Why? Well, it seemed like a lost cause to them. Of course, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in practice.

I stopped paying attention to baseball back in June when it was clear that the Cubs weren't going to put it together this year. The idea is the same: you minimize your feeling of loss if you make yourself apathetic about it ahead of time. And if you're apathetic about it, you'll certainly not bother to invest any effort, like voting.

Nevermind all of that "civic duty" talk, we don't want to hear any of that either. It reeks of Kant to those of us who know anything about Kant, and to those of us who don't, it sounds a heckuva lot like you're trying to tell us what to do. Well, buster, we are self-determining fully-fledged individuals, and goodness knows, we don't take orders from some vague concept like "duty".

I think the best way of getting my generation energized to vote isn't to hold Get Out the Vote rallies, or any of that. It clearly doesn't work. Instead, you should lie to us, and tell us we've got a sure thing here. We're going to win.

Heck yeah, I'll back that horse!