DCRepublican.com

Thu 1 May 2008

As the summer draws near and the Democratic Primaries slowly wind down, campaign season is going to quickly roll into overdrive.

Soon enough, your mailbox is going to be flooded with fundraising pieces, your phone will be ringing off the hook with robo-calls and you’ll probably have a new series of commercials taunting you as you watch your favorite TV shows, all from candidates you can’t stand.

Yes, the season nerds like me love more than any other quickly approaching.

However, as this “full swing” campaign time draws near, I’ve been noticing that there are many people questioning whether or not the GOP will have enough muscle to successfully challenge the Democrats this fall.

Today’s questioning comes from the Cafferty File Blog, where Jack Cafferty points to new research showing that amongst people under 30, Democrats are going to have a much larger advantage over Republicans than they did in 2004. Citing Pew Research Data, Cafferty asks why the GOP can’t attract more young voters:

The Pew research Center did a survey of young people between October of last year and March of this year. What they found was that the current generation of young voters who came of age during the George W. Bush years is giving the Democrats a wide advantage in party identification.

58% of voters under the age of 30 surveyed during that time identified or leaned toward the democratic party-compared with just 33% who identified or leaned toward the Republican party. In fact, the Democratic party’s current lead in party identification among young voters has more than doubled since the 2004 campaign — from 11 points then to 25 points now.

Should this be a cause of concern for Republicans? Sure, especially with the article being released today showing President Bush’s approval ratings as the lowest of any President ever. But it shouldn’t appear to be the end of the world.

The fact of the matter is that there is plenty of time for the GOP to brand itself in such a way that it has some appeal to younger voters.

I would argue that the GOP is currently doing many things that would be appealing to young people, however there has been very little marketing in terms of reaching beyond those who are identified and registered Republicans.

Without this marketing and outreach, the GOP carries the stereotype of being a party of old, rich, white men.

When you look at the issues that are really going to effect those who are under the age of 30, the biggest issue seems to be the most silent.

It’s not Iraq, its not Darfur, it’s Social Security.

I know that this was an issue that President Bush campaigned hard on in 2004, but courtesy of the Congress, he couldn’t get much done with it in 2005.

I also know that this was an issue that some would argue wasted a lot of ‘political capital’ for the administration, but I truly believe that if the GOP can bring this issue back, market it well and show young people why they need to demand change on this, we will win more young voters. We just need to be more creative.

As it stands now, neither of the Democrats will support any form of comprehensive Social Security reform, so it isn’t going to be hard to make a distinction, showing who is really looking to protect their future.

Another way that the GOP can attract more young voters is by returning to the roots of the early Republican Party, where decision and platforms were made on ideas, not polling trends and electability studies.

If the GOP can show themselves as the true party for limited government and personal responsibility, I don’t see any reason that they wouldn’t be able to attract some of the undecided voters, but more importantly tap into some of the Ron Paul base, which still seems to be strong.

Even something as simple as looking at issues from a different angle (like stopping bills that would make renters pay for the mistakes of some homeowners) will help people realize that the GOP isn’t what the stereotype suggests, and that we can actually create positive change both domestically and abroad.

There are a lot of things that the GOP can and will do to attract young voters to support the Republican candidates in November.

It’s going to take a lot of work, money and creativity, but these steps aren’t taken, the outcome of the November elections can be predicted now: we’ll lose.