re: Why is Obama so great?
Old rednecks like you don't get it.
Bonkers for Obama
The Nation -- Mark Warner tried hard to build a youth constituency for a possible '08 bid. He was one of the first politicians to create a full-fledged Facebook profile, listing Bob Dylan in his favorite music category and Harry Potter among his top books. He was a public face for the launch of TxtVoter, which encourages young people to vote through text messaging. He even created an official "YouthRoots Caucus" group on Facebook for his PAC, Forward Together. Despite all the effort, Warner--who declared he's no longer running last week--never really caught on with Generation Y.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama, who had done virtually nothing (until now) to directly court young people, has developed vast youth following. I counted nearly thirty Facebook groups, many ranging from hundreds to several thousand members, which explicitly called for Obama to run for President in 2008. There were almost twenty other pro-Obama groups with titles such as "Barack Obama is Amazing," "Barack Obama is My Only Hope," and "Barack Obama Can Ba-Rock Me Anytime."
I did a search for pro-Hillary in '08 groups and found a dozen or so, but I found many more groups urging Hillary not to run or openly opposing her. As for other potential Democratic nominees, I found a few groups for John Kerry and Evan Bayh, several more for John Edwards, and over a dozen for Al Gore, yet few of these groups had as substantial memberships as the pro-Obama groups.
Coincidence or not, days after Warner dropped out, Obama began using his Facebook profile to reach out to young people--creating two "notes," or Facebook announcements in the past two days, urging his followers to vote in the '06 elections and watch him on Oprah and YouTube.
Why would an Oval-Office-seeking Obama bother to court young voters? Because after the spike in youth voting in 2004, and subsequent surges in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races in 2005, no politician is writing off young voters anymore. Moreover, Generation Y--which will account for more than 25% of the population within the decade--is a massive block of potential voters.
One thing is clear: if Obama decides to run, he will have a tremendous base in young people. Obama would likely draw an unprecedented number of new young voters to the polls, and he would amass a huge volunteer core (one that would make the Deaniacs look like the Teeniacs).
As far as I can tell, he is by far the political superstar of the moment---and perhaps ever---for Generation Y. |
