Turns out, the kids rocked after all

Good news on the voting front. Numbers show that young voters are out there voting. They are still behind the 55-74 age group, but progress is progress.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nearly half of all eligible young voters cast ballots in the November 2004 election, raising their turnout rate by more than twice any other age group.

"This is big," said David King, associate director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, who highlighted the Census Bureau findings in a report issued Wednesday. "When you vote young, you're much more likely to vote the rest of your life, so the 2004 campaign turned a generation on to politics."

Exit polls from Election Day 2004 had shown that 9 percent of voters were 18 to 24, about the same proportion of the electorate as in 2000. Those figures were interpreted as a sign that young voters had failed to increase their political impact in an election that focused on the Iraq war.

But the Census numbers suggest that young voters did get involved.

About 47 percent of Americans 18 to 24 voted in 2004, up from 36 percent in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. No other age group increased its turnout by more than 5 percentage points.

Even with the increase, the youngest voters still had the lowest turnout rate. Nearly three of every four people ages 55 to 74 voted in 2004.

Those numbers explain why elderly voters are highly prized by candidates. But they also suggest there is enormous potential in the young vote, and that efforts by President Bush and Sen. John Kerry to recruit college-age students were worth the trouble.

The 18-24 set's 9 percent of the electorate was up very slightly from 8 percent the previous election. It's unclear what that might mean for the young vote in the future.

"Will it work for kids who were 14 years old in 2004? No idea. That work still remains to be done," King said. "But the 2004 campaign itself was an immense mobilizing event, bringing out the largest percent of young voters in 32 years."

A funny!

Thought of the Day

Ted Kennedy, 1990- "You [Alito] have obviously had a very distinguished record, and I certainly commend you for long service in the public interest. I think it is a very commendable career and I am sure you will have a successful one as a judge."


Ted Kennedy, 2005- "If confirmed, Alito could very well fundamentally alter the balance of the court and push it dangerously to the right, placing at risk decades of American progress in safeguarding our fundamental rights and freedoms."

This Nabity guy is killing me!

Heaven forbid our Governor try to reach out and meet a few citizens. Now if we want to talk campaign advantages, wouldn't your two year campaign stint in western Nebraska count as an advantage? I mean, Osborne and Heineman had jobs to do and couldn't be out messing around. Some give me a break, if a guy has a plane why can't he use it?