Well, it's over. And with heavy heart yet a solid sense of the stakes come November, this Hillary supporter is turning her energy now to the general election and getting herself completely behind the dude. So many important lessons and takeaways from primary season, which I'll continue to write and speak about as we go.Of course, one of the most important outcomes of having two such amazing candidates on the Dem ticket this primary season: the number of young people who rallied. On that note, definitely check out Courtney's latest, Fanning the Flames of Youth Civic Engagement, over at the WMC this week. Here's a summary:
As we finish the final contests of the primaries, young people are excited about politics. According to the PBS News Hour, 5.7 million people under the age of 30 voted in the primaries, a 109 percent increase from last presidential election. As Courtney Martin reports in the latest WMC Exclusive, young voters' enthusiasm should not be written off as a case of "Obama mania" (he got just 57 percent of the youth vote in Iowa, for example). Courtney writes, "In 2004, youth turnout in the general election rose by 4.3 million votes over the 2000 level, and hit the highest level in over a decade… The challenge ahead is to keep the excitement over the primaries alive until November, but what's more, make sure that civic engagement becomes an organic part of young people's frenetic lives from here on out."
3 comments:
Welcome aboard GWP. He might be a "dude," but I think (I hope!) you'll come to see that he is, in fact, a very special dude. A once in a lifetime dude. A we-should-be-so-lucky-in-this-country dude. Congratulations to Barack Obama, our first African-American major party nominee, ever. I'm honored to have lived to see this moment in history.
I am moved by your comment, Catherine. I do feel lucky, like you, to be alive to witness Barack's candidacy. I'm still hoping maybe he'll take HRC as his vice and then we'll be overwhelmed with the double historicity of the run....
Not to quote Nancy Pelosi, my fav female politician, but HRCs kind of made that impossible, hasn't she. HRC can do much more good in the Senate. If I were Obama, I'd be afraid she'd off me if she were VP. Here's my picks for the next administration: Bill Richardson for Secretary of State, John Edwards for AG, Donna Brazile for anything, anything, anything, and for VP, the usual old white guy from a red state to pick one of the Republicans.
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