By 2015, voters born from 1982 – 1995 will be a full third of the voting population. North Carolina Republicans can secure their political longevity and create a model for the rest of the nation if they follow Rule #7: Welcome young voters with “Come as you are” Open Conservatism.
Rule #7: Welcome Young Voters with “Come as you are” Open Conservatism; not “Come as we are” Closed Conservatism.
“I think this is a vast overreaction …,” Krauthammer told Bill O’Reilly, “He’s a leading Republican, obviously presidential timbre. He’s got the highest popularity of any governor and he’s in a blue state.”
Charles Krauthammer on CPAC’s snub of Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey
March 13, 2013 Vol. VI, No. 7 3:13 pm
Come as we are or don’t come at all!
CPAC, the national Conservative Political Action Conference, is a classic example of why conservatives in general and Republicans in particular have a brand problem with America’s youngest voters.
CPAC is holding its annual meeting March 14 – 16 in Washington, DC. The theme is, America’s Future: The Next Generation of Conservatives, a worthy topic in light of the growing numbers of young Americans in the workplace and the voting booth.
- On average, 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day.
- By 2015, the majority of the workforce in the U.S. will be in their 20s.
- By 2015, those born 1982 – 1995 will be a full third of the voting population.
CPAC welcomes all conservatives … ummm, unless you are one of the eight Republican governors, like Chris Christie of New Jersey, who favors expanding Medicaid for the poor. Then, you are demonized.
CPAC’s message to the “next generation of conservatives” is, come as we are or don’t come at all.
How can CPAC attract a new generation of young conservatives when they snub 8 Republican governors just because they decided that it was in their state’s best interest to take the Medicaid money? The eight governors are: NJ Gov. Chris Christie, VA Gov. Bob McDonnell, OH Gov. John Kasich, AZ Gov. Jan Brewer, FL Gov. Rick Scott, ND Gov. Jack Dalrymple, MI Gov. Rick Snyder, NM Gov. Susana Martinez, and NV Gov. Brian Sandoval.
Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer told Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, that CPAC’s decision to snub NJ Gov. Chris Christie was a mistake. “I think this is a vast overreaction …,” Krauthammer said, “He’s a leading Republican, obviously presidential timbre. He’s got the highest popularity of any governor and he’s in a blue state.”
This report is the continuation of a series highlighting key rules for How the North Carolina Republican Party Can Maintain Political Power for 114 Years (like their predecessors the Democrats). The rules highlighted thus far are:
- Rule #1: Always remember that you are vulnerable
- Rule #2: Criminal indictments scare off contributors
- Rule #3: Keep your voters close, and your metropolitan voters closer
- Rule #4: Caring must be at the core of conservatism
- Rule #5: Lose the courts, lose the war
- Rule #6: Men do not equal a majority
Today, I am adding Rule #7: Welcome young voters with “Come as you are” Open Conservatism.
Lose young voters now, lose them forever
Since the 1950s, university and private think tank researchers have documented time and time again that once a voter establishes a partisan political identity they will remain true to that party for life.
Last year’s presidential race was the third in a row in which young voters favored the Democrat over the Republican. In 2004, John Kerry won the 18-29 year-old group by 9 points; in 2008, Barack Obama won the group by 34 points and by 23 points in 2012.
By way of partisan contrast, Ronald Reagan won 59% of 18-29 year olds in 1984. Those young Reagan conservatives are still conservative, and still more likely to vote Republican. However, they are now the keepers of a conservative litmus test nationally and here in North Carolina that Reagan could not pass.
Ronald Reagan would not have been welcomed to this weekend’s CPAC conference.
- California Gov. Reagan supported/expanded Medi-Cal, the nation’s largest Medicaid program
- Reagan raised taxes in an effort to balance the California budget (largest state tax ever)
- President Reagan increased the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion
- Reagan transformed America from a creditor to a debtor nation
From amnesty for illegal immigrants, to abortion, to gun laws to same-sex marriage, President Ronald Reagan would fail today’s conservative litmus test. Like the eight Republican governors shunned by CPAC, Reagan would not have been invited to their conference this weekend.
Republicans must accept the reality that today’s under-30 voters are the most ethnically and racially diverse and most socially tolerant voters in American history. More like Reagan.
According to Pew Research Center, young voters are “the only age group in which a majority said the government should do more to fix problems.”
That’s why young American voters are turned off by today’s “come as we are or don’t come at all” anti-government conservatives. They are too intolerant and judgmental … like old-school preachers.
Praise and Worship Services say “Come as you are” to young Christians
Republican social and economic conservative hardliners are as out of touch with the new Millennial generation of American voters as the traditional Christian church elders are with Millennial Christians.
A couple of decades ago, young Christians began to show signs that they no longer felt comfortable worshiping where you had to wear a starched shirt or a dressy dress to be accepted; where you had to sing old hymns and sit stoically and listen to judgmental sermons about sin and God’s wrath from pompous preachers. They quit going to traditional worship service.
American churches were startled into self-examination by the dramatic decline in the participation of young adults. New startup churches were attracting young Christians by the millions; small Praise and Worship groups were meeting in vacant storefront spaces. They came dressed in jeans; they sang new Christian songs popularized by Christian Praise and Worship bands and artists.
Rather than saying to the next generation of Christians, come as we are or don’t come at all, churches all over America created “Praise and Worship Services,” a contemporary way of worshiping separated from their traditional services. They installed projection equipment for the lyrics of the new Praise and Worship songs; they invested in sound systems for Praise and Worship bands. Most of all, the traditional churches embraced the new form of worship.
Young Christians started going back to traditional churches because the churches changed from a “come as we are” mentality to “come as you are.” United in Christianity; worshiping differently.
By 2015, voters born from 1982 – 1995 will be a full third of the voting population. North Carolina Republicans can secure their political longevity and create a model for the rest of the nation if they follow Rule #7: Welcome young voters with “Come as you are” Open Conservatism.
– END –
Thank You for Reading the John Davis Political Report!
John N. Davis, Editor
If you are not a subscriber, please consider subscribing. The Premium Annual Subscription is $245. Mail your check to John Davis Political Report, P.O. Box 30714, Raleigh, NC, 27622, or subscribe online at www.johndavisconsulting.com/subscribe JND
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North Carolina is Romney’s to Lose; Obama Abandoned by his Army of Enthusiastic Young Volunteers Discouraged by Unemployment “The central question is likely to be whether Obama can turn out as many young people in this college-heavy state as he did in 2008. With massive 18-29 turnout, North Carolina looks doable for Obama. Without it,
[More…]
North Carolina is Romney’s to Lose; Obama Abandoned by his Army of Enthusiastic Young Volunteers Discouraged by Unemployment
“The central question is likely to be whether Obama can turn out as many young people in this college-heavy state as he did in 2008. With massive 18-29 turnout, North Carolina looks doable for Obama. Without it, probably not.”
The Washington Post, The Fix, Chris Cillizza, April 16, 2012
Post: Thursday, April 19, 2012 Vol. V, No. 14 1:13 pm
President Obama cannot win a second term without the army of enthusiastic young campaign volunteers responsible for his first victory, and thus far they are nowhere to be found. They have not abandoned the cause, they have abandoned the leader of the cause.
On April 16, 2012, Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, editor of the politics blog The Fix, argued in a story The 9 swing states of 2012, that if Obama does not get a large turnout of young voters in North Carolina, he is not likely to carry the state in 2012.
Well, Obama is not likely to carry the state. The facts tell the whole story:
- Obama carried North Carolina by only 14,179 votes out of 4,310,623 cast in 2008
- New registered voters in the 18-to-24-year-old age group in 2008 totaled 317,584
- CNN exit polls show 17% of all North Carolina voters in 2008 were 18-to-29-year-olds
- Barack Obama won 72% of the 18-to-29-year-old-voters to John McCain 28%
Bottom line: Without the young voters in North Carolina doing the hard work of registering and turning out voters in record numbers in 2008 … especially during the early voting periods of the May Primary and the November General Election … Obama never would have won.
Obama Defeated Clinton and McCain in North Carolina with Young Volunteers
On May 6, 2008, Primary Election Day exit polling here in North Carolina was so conclusive that the moment the polls closed the national networks declared Barack Obama the winner over Hillary Clinton.
David Plouffe, President Obama’s campaign manager, revealed the campaign secrets in his book The Audacity to Win. Plouffe recalls the 14-point blowout in North Carolina this way: “As the returns came in, we could see the traces of our strategy’s design: by registering over 100,000 new voters, producing strong turnout among African-Americans and young voters, and winning college-educated whites thanks to our stand against the gas tax, we made ourselves unbeatable in North Carolina.”[1]
The unconventional strategy of targeting atypical voters in unlikely places like North Carolina continued throughout the fall. Obama knew he could not defeat a Republican presidential nominee in the Old North State with TV ads, no matter how much money he spent. His only hope was a massive ground game, registering and turning out non-traditional voters.
The Obama campaign had 47 headquarters in our state in 2008, with 400 paid staff in the twenty-something age group managing the army of thousands of enthusiastic young volunteers.
When the dust settled and the numbers were tallied in North Carolina following the November elections, 967,804 new voters had been registered during the year, with nearly 8 in 10 registering either as a Democrat or Unaffiliated, pushing our state to over 6 million registered voters for the first time ever.
New African-American voters totaled over 304,708; new voters in the 18-to-24-year-old age group totaled 317,584 … early voters in the fall of 2008 totaled 2.6 million of the 4.3 million votes cast (only 984,000 voted early in 2004), more than voted on Election Day.
Obama Has No Coattails
In the fall of 2009, only one year after millions of young voters throughout America carried Barack Obama to victory, we discovered that Obama had no coattails. Young voters did not turn out for the Democrats in the two governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey.
Despite numerous pleas from the president during personal visits, only 8% of the 18-to-24-year-old voters turned out in New Jersey in the race that Republican Gov. Chris Christie won (17% in 2008), and only 10% of the 18-to-24-year-old voters turned out in Virginia in the race Republican Gov. Bob McDonald won (21% in 2008).
In a revealing story in Data-Net, July 2011, titled Young Adult Voting: 2010 falls short of 2008 by Eliza Kern, managing editor of reesenews, the “student powered” digital news publication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, it was reported that in the 2010 midterm elections in North Carolina, 18-to-25-year-olds “made up only 5% of the population who voted.” Kern points out that the turnout rate of young voters in 2010 was only 17%, “… as compared to a 60% turnout rate for citizens older than 66.”
Noting that young Republicans turned out at a significantly higher rate than Young Democrats in 2010 (24% compared to 17% for young Democrats), Kern writes, “… it does raise questions as to the depth of young Democrats’ commitments to their party and their president that was so widely touted after the 2008 election. This question of their commitment will remain highly relevant in the upcoming 2012 reelection campaign.”
Republicans will not take North Carolina for Granted in 2012
No one thought Obama could win North Carolina in 2008, so Republicans took this state for granted. McCain/Palin didn’t campaign here until the very end, and then it was too late.
The brilliance of the Obama campaign in North Carolina in 2008 cannot be overstated. They operated under the radar with a ground game only, thereby not alarming the opposition with a high profile TV ad campaign.
Obama has little chance of carrying North Carolina in 2012 in part because he has lost the surprise factor. But the main reason Obama has virtually no chance of carrying North Carolina in 2012 is that he does not have the army of enthusiastic young volunteers to do the hard work of registering and turning out voters.
Youth employment in America is at a 60-year low. Over 18% of Americans aged 18 to 24 are unemployed. According to an April 19, 2012 NPR story, Educated And Jobless: What’s Next For Millennials”, “Only 55 percent of people ages 16 to 29 have a job — the lowest percentage since World War II. A quarter of people between ages 25 and 34 are living with their parents, and new numbers out this week say people under 35 are worth 68 percent less than they were 25 years ago.”
Obama may be able to raise enough money to rent the 47 headquarters he had in North Carolina in 2008, and he may be able to pay for 400 workers again to staff them, but he can’t buy the army of enthusiastic young campaign volunteers responsible for his victory.
Young voters have not abandoned the cause of hope and change, they have abandoned the leader of the cause. Without them, he cannot carry North Carolina in 2012; without them he cannot win a second term as president of the United States of America.
– END –
Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report
John N. Davis, Editor
[1] The Audacity to Win, page 229.
[2] Union contributions and independent expenditures database provided by Civitas Institute
[3] http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/indexp.php
[4] The Wall Street Journal, SEIU Campaign Spending Pays Political Dividends, May 16, 2009
If you are not a subscriber, please consider subscribing. The Premium Annual Subscription is $245. You can subscribe online at www.johndavisconsulting.com/subscribe, or complete the subscription form here and mail to John Davis Political Report, P.O. Box 3071
4, Raleigh, NC, 27622.P.S.: Need a speaker? Let me know if you need a speaker or a moderator for a political panel. I moderated a panel Wednesday for the Independent Insurance Agents of NC featuring David Parker, Chair of the NC Democratic Party, and Robin Hayes, Chair, NC Republican Party. Audiences are particularly interested in politics this year due to the nation’s economic crisis and the many other uncertainties. Inquire about availability here. jnd