by Chad Morgan

Created on: May 03, 2008

One of the most important demographics that election candidates try to reach out to are the so called 'Gen X' voters. These are the people who fall in the 18-34 age group, male or female. Alot of people look at the younger people as ones who are not interested in politics but over the past couple of Presidential Elections, the 'Gen X' vote has came out in full force.

In all actuality, younger voters have been making a huge impact in Presidential elections for the better part of the last 30 years. It goes all the way back to the 1968 Democratic Party Convention that was held in Chicago. It was here that the infamous police riots against the young protesters outside of the venue took place. The young people got together to protest against a country at the time they thought was doing them wrong. All of a sudden the National Guard turned on them and the rest was history. I believe this was the governments' way of trying to curtail the influence of the younger vote.

In the 1980's, MTV and VH1 played a huge part in the Presidential elections by staging their popular 'Rock the Vote' campaigns. The video music channels would use their formats to showcase the candidates views and more importantly would stage voter registration drives to get more and more younger voters registered to vote. 'Rock the Vote' has been by far the most important and successful thing as far as the younger vote influencing Presidential elections.

The main reason that the Presidential candidates are so adamant about the younger vote is obviously the more voters the more of a chance they will be able to attain votes. Why do you think that Obama likes to have publicity shots of him doing things that younger people like to do such as bowling and shooting basketball. Why do you think that Clinton tries to impress the younger crowd with video of her taking shots of whiskey at a local bar.

Younger voters will make a huge impact in the upcoming Presidential election. You have to realize that they are impacted by what goes on in the White House just as much as the older folks do. The main way that they will affect the elections though is through the huge amount of voters that will turn out at the polls.

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