Do young people want Bubba (Bill Clinton) + Jerry Maguire?

If you are just arriving at SCOOP2012, a reported conversation between myself and my longtime friend and fellow reporter Wesley Lowery, we wish you a warm welcome! Wes and I recently participated in a New York Times forum on the youth vote, and this venue is, we trust, an animated extension of that discussion.

Wes, you raise a critical question.

How can the Republicans buck the anti-GOP trend among more independent-to-progressive leaning 18-30 year-old voters? Well, they'll have to sell American youth that they're getting a rawer an economic deal under President Obama than they did under President Bush. While jobs have returned gradually in the last few months, youth homeless is up, and so is debt amongst millennials. These are quite pervasive and unhappy realities for most young people, and come the general election, Republicans will have to exploit young people's ongoing economic vulnerability, and make a case they will be a better helping hand.

If they simply assert that the young person continue to be battered by the Obama economy, they may deter these voters away from the polling station, but they certainly won't be winning their votes. As we reported after Santorum picked a fight with New Hampshire college students, the most important question may be will the GOP even put young people in play?

(I got the impression from the reactions of students in attendance that Santorum's intolerance for young people's conviction in equality for gays and lesbians solidified his image as a non-millennial candidate and his poor showing in the maverick "live free or die" state.)



Ron Paul has put young people in play, concentrating on the plight of the American economy and promising to end foreign interventions that don't put America first. Jon Huntsman tried appealing to the center, but it couldn't overpower the GOP establishment. Will Romney remain glued to economic talking points on taxation, deficit reduction and other fiscal issues that do NOT stress solutions for young people's most immediate problems.

You're absolutely right, Wes: President Obama will have to - and it will be a challenge - argue that "change takes time." Young people are most responsive to quick results, and many will understandably ask is "Yes, we did" accurate in response to Obama's 2008 "Yes, we can" slogan. But, as we've reported here, the nation's economic predicament was too entrenched for a one-term fix. Will "We did what we could?" be persuasive enough?

My take: What will resonate for young people from Obama is the same thing youth will search for in a GOP candidate: Concrete plans to take loan-ridden college students out red ink, and a specific agenda to increase social mobility for a generation that witnesses a 99% and a 1% but no thriving middle class.

Wes, here's my question: Isn't the winner in 2012, for young people especially, the candidate who can hone the more convincing, unpretentious and steady message on the economy? In other words, "I feel your pain" combined with "Help me, help you" (i.e. Bill 'Bubba' Clinton + Jerry Maguire).