Bush's Teen Spirit
President Bush has won another resounding victory among people too young to vote. Channel One, the in-school educational TV network, conducted a state-by-state poll of nearly 1.4 million teens, "and the Republican incumbent wound up with 393 electoral votes and 55 percent of the total votes cast." Kerry "carried" only nine states--California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island--plus the District of Columbia.
One should be wary of drawing any conclusions from an unscientific poll, but that won't stop us from noting that the Roe effect may be at work here. We know that married people with children tend to be much more Republican than childless singles, so it's not too much of a stretch to assume that these kids largely reflect the views of their parents.
Of course, bachelors and spinsters vote too, so Bush's strong showing among teens probably doesn't augur a GOP landslide. But it does suggest the possibility that the electorate will become more Republican as these youngsters reach voting age--and that the conventional wisdom that the "youth vote" will help the Dems this year may well be mistaken. |
