"And do you have, if I may, kegs?” Jon Stewart asked Barack Obama in August 2007 in regards to the massive youth movement following Illinois’s junior senator.
It is not hard to see why one may think that the now President-elect was enticing young campaigners with alcohol. Both candidates of the 2008 Presidential election energized today’s youth in ways unseen in recent political history. “Youth turnout” — a phrase commonly used to refer to voters under the age of 30, as well as campaigners, canvassers, and even young adults trying to stay informed, showed significant and relevant increases on Tuesday, November 4, playing a possibly pivotal role in election outcome of swing states.
Indeed, young people proved to be a force to be reckoned with.
According to MSNBC, the youth voter turnout in the 2008 election exceeded that of any election since 1972, and 68 percent of these voters cast their ballots for Obama, as opposed to 30 percent for McCain. In his acceptance speech, Obama recognized the difference young people made toward his campaign, “it grew strength from young people, who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy.” This election year the young voter turnout far exceeded that of any year before. An estimated 22 to 24 million Americans under the age of 30 voted in this election, an increase of 2.2 million since 2004, according to MSNBC.
“I was really impressed with the high voter turnout,” said Scott Beaton, a senior history and political science major with no political affiliation. Beaton has been following the campaign all along and is hopeful Obama will be able to implement his campaign promises.
Senator Obama is not indifferent to the pleas of this generation’s youth. In January 2008, he told a rally, “Young people are voting at rates we have not seen in the history of this country. It’s your generation that can imagine not just the world as it is, but the world as it could be.” The University at Buffalo is no exception to the mass youth migration to the polls.
“I feel extremely energized by this election. Just watching him on television and seeing the facts, I don’t know how you couldn’t feel excited,” said senior political science major and Public Relations Officer of the Political Science SA, Sarah Tanbakuchi.
As early as January 2008, Barack Obama realized the potential power of this generation, a generation stereotyped as apathetic and selfish. “Young people are voting at rates we have not seen in the history of this country,” Obama said. “It’s your generation that can imagine not just the world as it is, but the world as it could be.”
According to Melissa Dahl, a columnist for MSNBC, “Political analysts have long been forecasting a high number of young voters in this presidential election,” says Dalh, also pointing out “that young people will do what young people are known for.” Dahl lists these as “flaking out, slacking off and failing to show up when it counts.”
Dahl goes on to say that the youth vote proved these pundits wrong. Dahl interviewed John Della Volpe, the Director of Polling for Harvard Institute of Politics, who described the effect the young had on this election. “[The youth vote] is turning states that [Obama] would’ve lost or barely won into more comfortable margins. Not only are they voting in higher numbers, they’re voting more Democratic.”
Many students feel that it wasn’t trickery, but rather Obama’s realism and sincerity that spoke to them.
“He wasn’t necessarily energizing youth, he just said it like it was,” said sophomore biology major Maritza Menjivar.
Junior psychology major and Vice President of NAACP Kimberly Lindo agrees.
“Little things make a big difference. He had a slogan that was relatable and used a lot of word play with ‘change.’ Even people uninformed of his proposed reforms knew he would have an impact on younger generations,” said Lindo.
Daysi Pia Ball, Interim Associate Director at the Intercultural and Diversity Center admits, “Students played a pivotal role in this election. If you look at the numbers since Tuesday, it’s clear that young voter representation was at its highest ever and was instrumental in getting Obama in office.”
Ball relates this phenomenon to a number of causes.
“I think this goes back to a number of things. Obama is relatable, he will listen. He is engaging and wants everyone involved in the process of democracy. He’s very real, and young students appreciate that — he’s not condescending to them or blowing them off,” said Ball.
Still, many feel that the huge voter turnout has less to do with Obama’s charisma and more to do with frustration of the past eight years of Republicanism.
“I think because of the last administration, and Obama’s promises of ‘change,’ youth are much more excited than older generations,” said senior political science and journalism major and president of the Political Science SA Gabriella Wolfson. “I think it’s definitely history in the making, and I’m excited that our generation is at just the right age for this election.”
Adam DelleBovi, a junior history and political science major, says that the candidates were pretty irrelevant, and he “wouldn’t have voted for a Republican because of the past eight years.”
Morley Winograd, a former adviser to Al Gore, said that Obama’s appeal to the youth vote can be directly correlated to his manipulation of the internet. This new generation lives on the internet, according to Winograd. With websites like Facebook and Twitter, people are in constant contact with each other. Winograd said “This is a generation that doesn’t tend to think about asking experts for opinion. They tend to ask each other, and then that becomes the truth.”
Wolfson noticed this trend. “If you go on Facebook and look at everyone’s status to see who voted, it seems that a lot more students are involved than in past election,” she said.
Perhaps it’s this interconnectedness that allowed Generation Y to go out and campaign in record numbers. Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail described the youth effort as a “perfect storm of opposition to the Republican Party,” and UB saw a series of campaigns to get students more active in politics.
“We tried to get as many people registered to vote as possible. We covered it to death,” said Wolfson.
“I know for a fact that our college campus was rallying for Obama. Even the organizations that couldn’t endorse a candidate were driving students to the polls to make sure they could vote. Us student leaders made sure everyone got out there and had a say,” said Lindo. She says that UB’s NAACP made it a point to teach students about Obama and McCain, and said one of her main goals as Vice President was “putting people in the know about potential presidents.”
Another major factor in the election of Barack Obama was minority groups. Being the first black man to be elected President, Obama received 96 percent of the black vote, according to CNN. The Washington Post interviewed several black members of political advocacy groups, who say that now that Obama has been elected, their goals and agendas will be put forth and taken more seriously. “We are now at a different place in black political power,” said Benjamin Jealous, the president of the NAACP. “We’re going to have to always reserve the hard options of in your face advocacy, but we have a lot of softer options for getting things done as well.”
Lindo reflected this sentiment.
“It was definitely a boost of morals for the minority community at UB,” she said.
The director of the African-American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland, Ronald Walters, told The Washington Post that black advocacy groups have a laundry list of issues that they want to see bettered under an Obama administration. This includes “the mass incarceration of African-Americans, poverty, pushing Obama to open a White House office on urban policy, education, employment training, and dealing with health care disparities.”
Still, one of the surprising facets of this election was that race didn’t play as dramatic of a role as pundits expected, which speaks volumes about the progress of race relations in the United States. George Stephanopoulos reported on George’s Bottom Line that 80 percent of Americans didn’t even take race into account, while only 19 percent did. In addition, the false assumptions of “The Bradley Effect” — that voters will say they intend to vote for Obama, only to let their true racist intentions prevent them from doing so in the polls, shows that perhaps the country is more enlightened than it is given credit.
“World leaders for the first time are looking at America as interracial — when was the last time anyone saw us like that? It gives the world hope,” said Menjivar.
African-Americans are not the only minorities who hold hope for more tolerance in a country now run by a black president. In an article in the Chicago Tribune by Ron Grossman and Noreen S. Ahmad-Ullah, doctorate candidate at the University of Chicago Imran Kahn expressed his hope for more tolerance.
“I hope [Obama’s win] means Muslims will be viewed as a part of society…that we’re more accepted, not looked at as terrorists.” Kahn was so inspired by the Obama candidacy that he volunteered to work on the phones for Obama, about two weeks prior to the elections.
Still, not every student is ecstatic about the victory of Senator Obama. Obama acknowledged this in his acceptance speech when he said, “to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president too.” Some still can’t help but feel upset.
“It’s disappointing to be on the losing side, and it is also discouraging for the next election,” said Ashlee Tumminelli, a junior communications major, Republican, and first time voter.
Freshman undeclared major, Katie Logan, fellow Republican and first time voter, feels Tumminelli’s pain.
“I feel like most people don’t even know what McCain supports,” said Logan. “I know a lot of people that I work with say, ‘I’m voting for Obama because he’s black and he’s cool.’”
Reactions are mixed worldwide, as well. According to MSNBC, America’s global image has been tarnished by the war in Iraq and the Obama presidency is going to improve relations and the American image in most countries internationally. J.D. Hede, a senior computer science major from Denmark, is pleased with the outcome of this election from an outsider’s point of view.
“McCain and Bush are so much alike and Bush created a lot of international hostility,” said Hede. According to Hede, there is overwhelming support for Obama in his home region.
Ricardo Ecker, a structural and electrical engineering graduate student from Panama, admits that he does not follow politics thoroughly or know much about Barack Obama. Still, he thinks that McCain’s association with President Bush and Bush’s policies puts him at a disadvantage from his country’s standpoint.
“I think because many people around the world see the United States in a military way, associating it with war, that Obama can help to improve the image that U.S has across the globe,” said Ecker.
Not everyone feels this way. Dapeng Cao, an industrial engineering PhD student from China says that many people in his home country actually supported John McCain.
“I’ve heard that a lot of people in China support McCain. Although many supported Obama, a lot still feel that McCain had a better foreign policy with China,” said Cao. “Obama mentioned several times that he wanted a limitation on Chinese import quotas on things like clothes and toys. But on the other hand, those who don’t care about trade view Obama as a victory of U.S democracy.”
In 2008, it seems that the young citizens of America have thrown away the image of the apathetic youth. Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote, confirms this, and said, “We’ll now take this incredible energy and momentum and demand action on the issues young people care about, such as the economy, the war in Iraq, health care, voting rights, and the environment. This is only the beginning.”
Ball just has one piece of advice for UB students: “Stay engaged. It’s your future, and it’s up to you to make change we can believe in.”
