On eve of Ill. primary, Romney 'doesn't see how anyone who is a young person could vote for a Democrat'

Tomorrow is a make-or-break contest for Governor Romney, but not in the conventional sense.

If he wins Illinois, and if he wins big, it will catapult him to near nominee status. It will provide the boost of momentum he seeks to deliver a penultimate, if final, blow to Senator Santorum's delegate odds.

As for the youth voter this spring: The increasing gas prices will never rival soaring tuition costs as the chief concern of 18-25 year old voters. However, older millennials, mid-to-late twentysomethings who don't shoulder college debt, may view the dollar tag at the pump their #1 issue. Either way you frame it, jobless or tangled in debt, "it's the economy, stupid," for Gen Y.

Mitt Romney, perhaps inadvertently, created headlines yesterday when he said he "doesn't see how anyone who is a young person could vote for a Democrat." It was Romney's only verbal courtship of young voters targeted at general election, and it hardly had the muster of substantiation.

However, his view is not totally inconsistent with young people's disappointment with President Obama for not aggressively enough fighting on their behalf...and on their issues. In the vast majority of youth polls, college voters are unhappy with Obama's performance on at least one issue (i.e.: the environment or gay rights).

Given deepening red ink and fiscal woes, some youth remain generally disenchanted with President Obama, especially on college costs. A modest Pell Grant expansion has not done wonders for the first-time voter demographic's economic footing.  

However, Romney, to date, has done little, if anything, to persuade the young voter why they would vote for a Republican instead. Romney and his current brand of Republicanism has only distanced young people from potentially voting for a Republican this fall.

The party's cycle has been a vicious one, not only for the exhausted and sometimes self-destructing candidates, but for the young voter who is completely turned off, whether it's talk of banning Planned Parenthood or dismissive attitudes toward college aspirations.

At the end of the day, for most young voters, the President is not that bad after all. He brought troops home from Iraq, extended health insurance coverage to more young Americans, invested in record education, innovation and infrastructure projects via stimulus and added two pro-choice vigorous intellectual women to the Supreme Court. Those are still promises kept, if you ask most college students or higher-educated 18-29 millennials, even if they don't cure the economic ills plaguing many of them.  

So, Wesley, can you see how anyone who is a young person could vote for a Republican?