by John Devera

Created on: May 04, 2008

The impact of younger voters on the 2008 election should both energize and scare Barack Obama. It is the two-edged Damoclesian sword over his head. Here's how the pundit taling heads are looking at the situation.

Barack Hussein Obama is the candidate of change. College students are so excited about his campaign that his rallies have begun to resemble raves and rock concerts more than political rallies. Teenage girls are fainting in the crowds on an embarrassingly regular basis. He's only 47. That's fourteen years younger than Hillary Rodham Clinton. He's TWENTY-FIVE years younger than John Sydney McCain. Think about that for a moment. That means while John McCain was suffering in a Vietnamese tiger cage, being tortured, Barack Obama was fourteen years old, and apparently not yet experimenting with drugs.

What this means is that Barack Obama hopes that he can take this swell in the number of college students supporting him into the voting booth. This is actually not such great news. You see, this bubble of voters, the college youth, make up a tiny fraction more than 10 percent of the total vote. Now, so far, the demographics of people voting between Barack and Hillary, is pretty telling. In exit polls in Pennsylvania, for instance, a good 20 percent of the voters claimed that race was a factor. Nearly one in five democrats voting in this election said that they wouldn't vote for a black candidate regardless of his intelligence, charisma or policies. That's twice the number of those college groupies. Now, that's a significant problem.

And in national election, the effect of this college age demographic becomes even less important. Consider that almost 97% of the registered voters in Flint Michigan vote. A mostly lower-middle class environment. Compare that to the greatest percentage of college age voters to ever vote in an election: 67% in 1972.

Barack is also losing traction amongst those very college age students. His lack of a cohesive policy foundation, his woeful handling of Reverend Wright's polemic racism, his unwillingness to address his ties to the Weather Underground, have all poinsoned his appeal. You see, Barack Obama want to portray himself as the John Kennedy of the new millennium. He is young, charismatic, he has a gorgeous wife, he wants to be a leader that brings people together, who inspires hope and change. But let us remember that Kennedy was a war hero. Barack is not. Kennedy unequivocally supported racial equality, whereas Barack is tainted by the racism of his spiritual mentor, the Reverend Wright. Kennedy was vehemently and unwaveringly patriotic. Mrs. Obama says she had never been proud of the United States until her husband got elected. Kennedy gave a speech in which he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Instead, ask what you can do for your country." Barack is all about what the United States should do as reparations for slavery, what the United States should do as reparation for social and educational inequities, what the United States should do to protect the real estate tycoons who took a bath when the housing bubble crashed, what the United States should do to guarantee the rights of illegal immigrants, what the United States should do to protect the rights of the murderers held at Guantanamo.

The impact of the younger voters in the upcoming elections is not what will save Obama's candidacy. What will get him nominated to run, and finally elected, is the hope that he is different enough, represents a fantasy of change enough, to contrast with Hillary or John.

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