The Obama Party

It hardly came as a surprise to anyone on election day when Barack Obama cruised to a 2-1 landslide victory over Senator McCain among voters younger than 35. The youth vote had long been considered an arrow that solely belonged in Obama's quiver. It was the secret to his upset in Iowa, the source of thousands of Facebook messages, and an impression among all the talking heads that younger voters finally had a candidate they could identify with. (It probably did not help that at age 72 and as a Vietnam War veteran, John McCain seemed more likely to be a Wikipedia article that a 25 year old voter scanned through to cram for a U.S. history paper than as a potential voice for the Net generation's hopes and dreams.)

What was surprising was that many young voters simply did not cast votes for anyone other than Barack Obama. As many as one out of every five votes the President received from voters under the eligible age to run for the Presidency themselves, was a vote for Barack Obama for President...and quite literally nothing else. In a very real sense, these voters are neither Democrat, Republican, or Independent--they are card-carrying members of Obama for America, nothing more and nothing less. (Were this a snarkier blog than NewMajority, here is where I would gleefully mock the Obama personality cult.)

David Plouffe clearly has internalized this. Among the many benefits of the 13 million member strong Plouffian construct known as Organizing for America, AKA the President's reelection campaign, is its ability to insure that Obama's supporters remain in constant contact with the President and his agenda. In terms of insuring that the Obama Party marches in lockstep with its leader, this is, well, brilliant.

Or not. There's a reason why The New Republic is fretting about the existence of the Obama Party. Voters ultimately fall into a pattern of voting for parties once they vote one way a few times, and it's always better to imprint partisanship on voters as early as possible. If twenty percent of the Obama youth vote is truly only Obama's, it's a signal that those voters haven't done anything more than crawl on their journey to full fledged Democrat adulthood. They voted for personality, and could well be swung by personality again in 2012...especially if President Obama fails in fulfilling the lofty promises he made during the campaign.

The Republicans should be prepared to try and pick up those pieces, should such a turn of events transpire. We need a real youth strategy, one that is more than just bringing out rapper Daddy Yankee for the fall campaign.