Left Out: Young People and the Democratic Party

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Another chronic problem is incoherent message. In 2002, a New York Times poll taken the weekend prior to the congressional elections showed that only a third of potential voters thought Democrats “had a clear plan for the country.” Democrats who blame Nader for America’s current political woes ignore the fact that many people voted for him because they literally could not distinguish Gore’s positions from Bush’s.

Younger voters are attracted by idealism. Issues such as Social Security and prescription drugs are not as compelling to youth as they are to older generations—and it wouldn’t kill candidates to talk about college loans, the environment, the drug war, or civil liberties. Conservatives do a good job of framing their issues in the context of a moral philosophy. Progressives should do the same. They ought to be more vigilant about conveying their core belief that government should be a moral force by which citizens collectively do for one another what individuals and businesses can’t do.

Some say the Democratic hangup with pop culture is a reaction to George McGovern’s resounding defeat in the 1972 presidential election, in which the candidate’s image was commingled with various 1960s protest and cultural movements. For many progressives, says Tom Hayden, culture bashing is like taking a drug test. “[It’s] as if they’re saying, ‘I have been cleansed of the ‘60s because I have attacked those lyrics,’“ notes the former California state senator and Chicago Seven member. Besides being morally dubious, this is politically irrational. Why lump everything from the ‘60s together? Violent groups such as the Weathermen were very unpopular with millions of the very same people who loved the Beatles and romanticized Woodstock.

Meanwhile, it’s George W. Bush, not any leading Democrat, who bantered with Ozzy Osbourne at a Washington correspondents’ dinner last year, and it was Bush’s then-Treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, who brainstormed with Bono about Third World debt relief.

So, what can the Democrats do to win back the youth vote in 2004? They can start by not putting Joe Lieberman on the national ticket. An oft-quoted section of his campaign book, In Praise of Public Life, claims that “traditional sources of values in our society—such as faith, family, and school—are in a life-and-death struggle with the darker forces of immorality”—namely, he writes, “entertainment culture.” Moreover, Lieberman is just too conservative across the board, even more so than he was in 2000. As TV comedian Jon Stewart described him, “Joe Lieberman is for people who really want to vote for George Bush—but think he’s not Jewish enough.” Millions of otherwise Democratic voters, I think, would abstain from a Lieberman-Bush contest.

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