Anticipating Illinois vote, GOP youth base deals continued blows to Romney

Courtesy of FOX NEWS and CNN, respectively: youth exiting polling from Alabama and Mississippi demonstrating Santorum's sweep of the 18-29 demographic. As CIRCLE reports, "Santorum Surpasses Paul in Cumulative Youth Vote Count after Alabama and Mississippi Primaries."

Apologies for my recent absent from SCOOP2012. I'm recovering from surgery and hope to be more or less recuperated soon.

As for Wesley's question about millennials and gas prices, I will answer on Monday.

Will pain at the pump drive young voters to GOP candidates?

While writing for The Wall Street Journal last summer, I conducted what remains one of the most entertaining interviews I've ever had.

I was covering monthly rent rates for New York City, and figured why not give a ring to the most outspoken opponent of high rent — the one and only Jimmy McMillian.

Now, I haven't reached out to Mr. McMillian for this post, but I'm pretty sure he'd agree that — like rent — "gas prices are too damn high."

But while both sides of the aisle agree that lower prices will be nice, the question remains just who is to blame for the high gas prices, and whether frustration over them will cause backlash from the American people toward the incumbent president when they hit the polls this November.

GOP candidates, specifically Newt Gingrich, seem to think so.

The former Speaker of the House has launched his #250gas campaign, centered around the promise that "Newt gas" would cost just $2.50.

I've yet to see evidence that the campaign has been particularly effective with young voters, even as it has reached the ears of most Americans. A Washington Post poll released earlier this week found that nearly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way Obama has handled gas prices in the U.S.

I'd be eager to see a poll directly asking young people if they fault Obama for the high gas prices, but in the meantime, one thing is clear — young voters do care about energy dependence.

According to a 2011 poll conducted by Generation Opportunity:

61 percent of young adults rated energy dependency among the top three national security issues facing the United States, along with national debt and indebtedness to foreign powers. In the same poll, 70 percent of young adults indicated they would increase the production of domestic energy sources like oil, natural gas, and coal. Also, due to the poor economy, 77 percent of young Americans indicated they either have or will delay major life decisions as a result of the poor economy including decisions to start a family, have children, buy a home, and save for retirement.

Young voters are certainly paying attention to the continually rising cost of gas, but what remains unclear is whether pegging a long-term presidential contest on a constantly changing economic variable is a wise political move.

Generation Opportunity's poll also found that young voters rank Energy Dependence as the second most important political issue (trailing the national debt).

So, Alexander, how will the dialogue over rising and unstable gas prices play out at the ballot box in November? Will it hurt President Obama and just how important is the price of gas to young voters?

Will South give Romney the birthday present he's been asking for?

Tomorrow we'll get the results of two more GOP contests — Mississippi and Alabama — where frontrunner and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney is hoping to further add to his argument that his competitors should drop out of the race and unite behind his campaign.

Timing would be great for Romney. He's coming off a close win in Ohio and is celebrating his birthday (can you believe this guy is 65?).

Romney has had his campaign surrogates touting the same message. Real estate mogul, reality televison personality and presidential campaign flirt Donald Trump had this to say, yesterday:

Trump told Fox News (Via Politico):

“It’s not game over [yet] because nobody gets out. I mean, Rick Santorum, who lost by 18 or 19 points running for the Senate in Pennsylvania, just keeps going and going,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.” “What does he have to lose by staying in? So he just doesn’t get out

“He’s not going to win and it’s not going to happen. In my opinion, it’s not going to happen and the one that’s winning is Obama.

At a certain point, you have to get behind a person and you have to start going after Obama and not each other. And what the Republicans are doing is disgraceful."

Now, I'm rarely, if ever, inclined to agree with Trump on matters of politics but, if Gingrich or Santorum can't pull together a win tomorrow then I'll side with the Romney camp.

In the meantime, both parties must focus on mobilizing the electorate. After what has been 7 years of unpopular presidencies (the last half of the Bush administration and much of the Obama administration thus far) many young people are little more than turned off by politics.

In fact, a study released by test-prep provided Kaplan last week included some troubling statistics.

According to the study:

The shine off the Capitol dome may be losing its luster for pre-law students, a traditional bullpen for future politicians. In a Kaplan Test Prep survey of 758 pre-law students conducted between December 2011 and February 2012, 38% said they would consider running for political office – a marked decline from the 54% who reported they were thinking about becoming candidates in 2009. Within that 38% lies a glaring gender gap: 51% of male pre-law students would consider running, but only 29% of female pre-law students would consider it.

If the decline in political aspirations among pre-law students continues, it may fuel an existing and related trend: the decline in the number of lawyers serving in Congress.

Here is a key question for us: If our nation's aspiring lawmakers are, in fact, not aspiring lawmakers, should we be confident about young turnout in 2012? What is turning young people off from the political process?