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http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/11/04/news/local/f66bea3e9178372586257388007dee1b.txt
Campaigns work hard to attract young voters
By Ed Tibbetts Quad-City Times
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Gideon Yago laid it on the line for Coe College students at a presidential forum here last week.
"One of the great things about being in a place like Iowa," the 27-year-old MTV news correspondent said, "is that a lot of you guys are going to actually get a chance to participate in this process and see it first hand."
But, really, will they?
Every presidential cycle, there's a push to get young voters to turn out. Usually, they don't.
Example: In 2004, just 3.9 percent of the 124,000 Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa were between 18 and 24.
By comparison, turnout by people 55 to 65 was nearly four times higher.
Still, one of the most talked about demographic targets in this year's caucuses are young people, especially by the Democrats.
Campaigns are setting up offices on college campuses, applying interactive technology to reach the young and devoting at least some of their staff and volunteers to roping them in.
The reason is simple: Iowa is expected to be close. And with the winner possibly being the candidate with 35,000 to 40,000 votes, adding a couple thousand people to your column could provide a valuable margin.
And although young people may not have voted in the past, that also means there's a large pool of potential new support.
Thus, the effort to pierce their legendary apathy.
Candidates target young voters
In many cases, that means appealing to their idealism, like Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., did on the Coe College campus in Cedar Rapids.
"It was young people who decided that slavery was wrong. It was young people who decided segregation was wrong. It was young people who made sure that women had the right to vote," Obama said. "It will be young people who help bring an end to the Iraq war. It is you who will ultimately make the difference."
So far, Obama has gotten the most attention for trying to lure young voters. He's even taken the unusual step of devoting a full-time staffer to organizing in more than 140 high schools.
But the other Democratic campaigns are busy, too.
John Edwards has set up an outreach plan using text messaging and other technology to connect with young voters, while his daughter Cate and "Desperate Housewives" star James Denton made a tour of college campuses in September.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign is courting young people, too, with outreach and visits by famous supporters. Soap star Victoria Rowell was part of a Rock the Vote event in the Quad-Cities.
On Thursday, Clinton's campaign also announced a "Students for Hillary" campaign and touted a new nationwide poll showing her leading Obama by 30 points among people between 18 and 30.
Young voters can let you down
Since 2004, when Howard Dean's base of young voters failed to boost him to victory in the state's caucuses, it's become conventional wisdom that it's not smart to rely on the youth vote.
Even Obama's campaign is quick to point out it's not banking too heavily on the demographic.
"We're excited that Sen. Obama's candidacy is bringing in new people," said Tommy Vietor, an Iowa spokesman. "But we continue to focus much of our efforts on reaching out to traditional caucus-goers."
Entrance polls conducted before the 2004 caucus did show a sharp increase in turnout by people between 18 and 29, but the figures don't match with the statistics the Iowa Democratic Party has released about actual 2004 turnout.
Despite that, there is reason to believe young people are more interested in elections than in the past.
In Iowa's two most recent federal elections, youth turnout was up.
In 2004, 62 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, up from 47 percent four years earlier.
In fact, state figures show that a third of the new voters in Iowa in 2004 were people 18 to 24.
Last year, turnout in that same age group jumped from 23 percent to 27 percent.
"It is not wise to ignore the youth vote," said Sujatha Jahagirdar, the program director for a new voters project launched last month by the Iowa Public Research Interest Group.
The group hopes to get 5,000 people 18 to 29 to commit to caucusing.
Caucus date may keep students away
A caucus is much different from a standard election, however, and just because more people are willing to go into a voting booth doesn't mean they'll go to a caucus.
More time is required at a caucus and, in the Democratic Party, it means casting a vote in the open, in front of others.
This year's caucus date has complicated matters, too.
With the caucuses set for Jan. 3, colleges will be on winter break.
For people like Meghan Keder, a 20-year-old Coe student from Scottsbluff, Neb., that's a deal breaker.
"I live 12 hours away, so I can't really come back for one day just to caucus," said Keder, a member of the college Democrats.
As a result of the new date, Iowa's in-state college population will be scattered across the state on the Jan. 3, making it less likely that peer pressure will get them to the caucuses. That will put more pressure on the campaigns to go out and get them.
For people like Erica Smothers, a 19-year-old studying biology, it may matter less what kind of outreach there is than the lasting influence of a candidate's touch.
After listening to Obama speak to a crowd under a canopy of trees on a warm fall day here, Smothers confessed that "to be honest, I don't know a lot about all of the candidates."
But she still said she's 80 percent sure she'll go to the caucus, anyway.
"I just think it's a great thing having Barack here," she said. "He just has a really great way of speaking to young people."
10:50 PM
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