Gina

I think it’s great that younger Americans are voting! Also, thank you for this article! It reminds me that I have to register to vote (and just in time, too!)

I’m American myself and honestly, I can’t choose who to vote for. In my opinion, both of the candidates have their flaws and such and honestly, I don’t know much about them to make a decision.

The article was right about how younger people lean more towards Obama and the older group of people (65+) lean towards McCain. My parents are in their mid fifties and they’re leaning towards Obama as well.

Here’s a question: Which president will leave a greater impact on the world, good or bad?

Robby

I’m not really the political sort, but it seems this election is taking the interest of a lot more young people than the previous few.

I didn’t know about the Pakistan news. I wonder if that’s making CNN.

A quote to close this random comment:

“I’m not a comedian, I just watch the news and report the facts.”

Ashley

That’s very interesting to think about!! How in the past its been our parents voting and a lot of young people not wanting anything to do with the presidential election or caucus(if that’s spelled right?). But I think the reason for so many young people getting out and voting or making a stand to it is because past presidents haven’t had what we want to see or what we want for the world to heart. Seeing Obama and McCain standing before us on national television non-the less saying that their bringing about change, does make us wanna vote for them more. Leading CNN and MSNBC to wanna coverage young voters at the poll to show the difference that we’re trying to make. And to answer Gina’s question: From what I’ve heard and seen from candidates I have a pretty strong favor to vote towards Obama. He just comes off to me like he wants it more and like he has more to offer to the world to the state of the U.S. than McCain does. Not to say that McCain wouldn’t be a more stronger candidate, which he is. But if there’s gonna be change in the world than how it’s been going Obama does seem to be like the better president. He definitely comes off to me like the type that if he’s in office he’s actually gonna do something.

Just food for thought,
Ashley

Gina

@Ashley

I also have a pretty strong favor to vote Obama also. From what I’ve been hearing (by word of a LOT of people), McCain is going to be like the next George Bush. We REALLY don’t need another George Bush, that’s for sure. It’s not just our country that despises him, but I’m sure a lot of other countries do too. I think we need a Democratic president.

The American dollar is now valued at $.63 because of the war, gas prices, etc. I’ll have to do more research into the candidates before I make a decision. I just hope that whoever I choose will be the right person to vote for and that I won’t make a horrible mistake.

Prad Robert

Young vote is very important , I know what I’m speaking about unfortunetaly …
If the people who are more than 60 years old hadn’t vote , The gnome (who is less funny than the one of Amélie Poulain ) wouldn’t never been the French President …

Arelis

The motivation with young voters normally increase by a lot in a time of war. The events of 911 and the Iraq war are clearly a big factor as to why young voters are so passionate these days.

Much like in 1960’s during the Vietnam War and the 1990’s with the Gulf War… Each of those wars, the youth interest in politics took a big increase and then faded away once things settled down and we were back in a period of peace.

War is horrible, more so when it’s unnecessary… but if war can bring the future of a country out, demanding for a better tomorrow then there’s the silver lining!

jono

Kristin, I want to do a write-up on a news piece for next Tuesday but not sure who to contact.

Please let me know.

Ver0nik21

I’m very liberal whem comes to politics, where i’m, it’s not time for elections yet but it is a big deal since whoever you choose it’s going to take decisions on very important aspects of your future, like what he’s gonna do for education, and in America (USA) a very important matter: War!!!
I just hope that the next president stops this war! so many people dying americans and irakies! It’s just not worth it!
Well, peace and love to you all!
xoxox

Karen

It’s really weird how younger people are targetted now. Here in Belgium you have to go vote from the age of 18 so we have been ‘targets’ for this kind of votingfrenzy for ages. In fact most of the time you get a class in your last year of secondary education explaining the names of all the parties and what they stand for. (Belgium being the humongous – ahem – country that it is has a LOT of different parties).

I do think it’s good that they want to involve young people but maybe just openly informing would be a better way?

Frida

Why choose McCain when he will continue using George Bush’s policies? Trust me when I say most people despise George Bush, and unfortunately, therefore your country.

Lydia

To be honest, I’m not into politics because it’s too complicated, especially here, Belgium. When it’s voting time, I follow my instinct based on the things I’ve heard in the news but I know very little of our political parties. They’re too many. LOL

I’m saying hi to Karen.
I’m from Belgium too.

Emma

Good article! Thank you KK!
It’s interesting how youth are being heavily included during this campaign. I mean everyone knows that WE are the generation of adults who will be most affected by the outcome of a new government, so that’s a good thing. However, there seems to still be this huge divide between the candidates and their followers, this is the most worrying in my mind. I think in a world like today, where HUMANITY seems to be missing, the focus should be on benefiting the global community rather than sticking to safe, old fashioned ways of running a country. I would vote for Obama if I was living in America; he’s new and he’s a fresh face.

Scott123

Good Article! I have been saying it for years. In this election in particular, you are going to have voters who were born in 1990. This means people who do “googling”. They have been since they were small children. This is a group that has never known life without the internet.
What this means is, you cannot just throw out a slogan and expect people to follow you. If you say “I like Ike”, the response will be, “Oh Yeah, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was a general in ww2 and Korea! He was the one who said ‘Beware the military industrial complex.’ We know who he is.”
You can type “Federal Budget” and see for yourself just what our debt is. This debt is going to be the source of huge contention, and young people are not going to pay it! They will say-with their vote-You spent it! You pay it!
Many politicians will say,” We want more young people to start discussing political ideas.” Of course they do, they don’t want you looking at the money! Well, too late for that! Young people today are exponentially smarter than they were even 15 or 20 years ago.
It was a famous Republican (ironically) who said “You cannot fool all of the people, all of the time.”
This was never more true than in the age of the internet.

Your friend in Political Science
Scott123

Blank

For the sake of USA, dont´vote for Mccain…

Maxima

My opinion in a nut shell:
I don’t subscribe to politics.
I’m for peace, common sense, creativity, passion, romanticism, surrealism, imagination and love.
Tolstoi said it the best – “I (the government) sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means…except by getting off his back”.

Gina

Yes, please don’t vote for McCain, you’ll regret it later!

skahahoo

You younguns are my hope for the future of this country I so dearly love.

To help you decide who to vote for in the upcoming Presidential election, this quiz matches you up with the candidates:
http://www.speakout.com/VoteMatch/senate2006.asp?quiz=2008

And if you’re interested to see where the candidates stand on the issues:

McCain:
http://www.ontheissues.org/John_McCain.htm

Obama:
http://www.ontheissues.org/Barack_Obama.htm

This is a non-partisan site. All the info they gather is from news articles, voting records, broadcasts, etc.

May we choose the best candidate come November.

Gina

McCain wants us to stay in Iraq for 100 more years. Like THAT isn’t going to impact the American economy.

Emma

@Skakahoo
Seriously fascinating links! Thank you so much for sending them, what an interesting quiz!

Karen

Hi Lydia!
Yeah I have to agree with her that it does get confusing. You do have to follow the news and stuff to know which party to vote for.

Rob

That’s interesting, they point out that only 1/3 of those who consume news and are younger than 25 watch TV news on an average day.

I have a slight disagreement with their conclusion that younger audiences are disinterested in TV News. A lot of that depends on the survey they cite (which I couldn’t find a link to), and how it defines or classifies news. They seem to imply that they are only discussing hard news, a definition that probably stands firmly at odds with what many people consider news today. For instance, Matthew Baum has done several studies on what he classifies as “soft news”, news that capitalizes on an entertainment angle (Colbert etc). Also with the broad variety of cable options, it is difficult to say that there is a general disinterest in news on tv by merely focusing on a small collection of channels. They make a very slight mention of this, but my impression was that they severely underestimated the impact of soft news given their conclusion. Television is also a medium that is no longer dominate, mirroring the transition from radio, the internet provides many young voters with a great deal of information.

Anywho, there are some interesting studies that compare survey results that seek to identify the level of “political awareness” of respondents using a battery of relatively friendly questions. Some of these are great because you can see how difficult it is to make conclusions either way, with some consumers of soft news displaying higher awareness and others not. It’s a great topic, if anyone is interested I’d definitely suggest “Soft News Goes to War” by Matthew Baum.

Solid article, overall i think it does a great job of introducing the topic.

*dacara*

I think it’s sad that many young Americans don’t watch the news on a daily basis and even worse don’t read the newspaper very often. I think it’s important to be aware of the issues going on around the world. As a young person I enjoy watching the news and reading the paper everyday. I think it’s great that news stations are trying to attract young people to watch the news. Even though the news has it’s flaws like having certain biases and only covering what they think is important, I think it’s still good to watch it. I’m glad that people are starting to notice that the younger generation can get involved politically especially at times like these. Young people do care but I think that sometimes it’s easy for us and our needs to be ignored in the poltical world.

Anon

maybe you need a separate category to just focus on politics, calling it: politics for chicks or politikies for chickies or whatever. it might be appropriate to do so or not, particularily with a women running for vice president in the u.s. now as well as the recent history (or herstory) of another that ran for the democratic nomination for president earlier. and there are other women world-political leaders, past or present, out there also, so it wouldn’t need to be limitied to being just about the u.s. either. might even bring a little healthy controversy to your website with the variety of political opinions out there.

Lorène

hello all the team,
I don’t know where I can post this message so I put it here.
The presidential elections are on tuesday the 4th .
And I know you don’t vote because you are canadian and not american but I would like to ask you : who, to your opinion, could be the best president : Barack Obama or John Mc Cain ?
Huge kisses
tchao
xoxo

Bethany (in England)

I know this is really late but oh well. Even though i am English, at school we were really interested in the elections. Nearly everyone was for Obama. They said McCain would drop dead of old age and that Obama would soon be assasinated because of racial issues.
I think its great that younger people are voting. After all it is your future. Maybe we will see one of you guys as the first female president?