by Mona Gallagher

Created on: May 05, 2008

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will go down in history and we will analyze and read about the long drawn out fight between the first viable woman and African-American man to run for the President of the United States. It's an exciting time in the political arena and has the potential of producing an unprecedented voter turn out.

It's a gross understatement to say that this election year is like no other in history. Young voters are registering in droves. Youth from all demographics have thoughts and ideas on the outcome and the possibility of electing the first woman or the first African-American as President of the United States of America.

The youth of our nation are energized and mobilized all over the nation and most are taken with the young Senator from Illinois. Obama, with his intellect and ability to give riveting speeches has drawn our youth into his fold. They will have an significant impact in the number of votes cast and the volume of votes cast for Barack Obama.

The question is, how much impact will they have?

To his credit, Senator Obama has made it a priority to register new voters and is targeting the college age youth of our nation. They are open to change and we see an excitement that has not been evident in the youth vote for many years, however, some credit goes to the Democrat Party who began to court the young people several years before the campaign began.

It is a bold strategy and is hoped to make a difference in electing Democrats to our highest offices in our nation. The Republicans can take note of the shift and changes in the political ideology because we've not seen anything approaching that strategy in their camp. In the 2004 election, winning was all about mobilizing and getting out the vote. The Democrats learned that lesson well.

In this election primary season, we've seen the core of the Democrat Party shaken by the two front runners, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, but party ideology will prevail. Clinton seems to rely on party politics and courting the established machine rather than reaching out to the youth. McCain is seen by many young people as old establishment.

That's a simplification, of course, because young people are still individuals with thinking skills. The major shift in ideology is away from traditional values of character value and personal accountability to the ideology of government funding, nationalized health care, and stricter regulation of our markets.

Abundant idealism exists in our

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