Will More Young People Vote in 2008?
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I had a young man from Florida in my freshman English class in the fall of 2000. I made a point of asking him if he'd voted. He had not.
I had an interesting case study in an advanced rhetoric class at UMKC during the 2000 election. It was a special topics class about the press/politics of the campaign. One of the assignments was to write an op-ed for the Kansas City Star and try to get it published. Several students were published. One particular student was not published. She had written one of the best op-eds I'd ever read from a student in any class--a personal account of her struggle with a nasty disease. She wanted to know why the candidates always discussed health care in terms of older Americans.
The Star turned down her cogent, well-written op-ed because it was "too personal" they said. But that's a dodge because papers such as the Star publish personal op-eds that speak to current events all the time. The real reason, I suspect, is that her op-ed bucked the master narrative, i.e. who gets sick and who needs help with health care.
And then there's the other problem: Candidates won't care much about young voters until young voters start voting. That's also when the press will begin to care.
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Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 6:31 pm under
