Why Are We Heaping Praise On The Youth Vote?

In case you've missed it, Barack Obama has won the 2008 American Presidential election. I'm still digesting this a bit, that's why I didn't blog right away. Despite all the excitement and fanfare over this victory, I find myself watching the events unfold with extremely cautious optimism. In particular, on election night, I thought the political pundits were really going over the top when describing what an Obama victory meant. I caution that because we're basically setting expectations so high, that it may be humanly impossible for Obama to achieve such feats. I'll have more on this later.

For now, I want to go after the news pundits over the youth vote. Throughout election night, countless talking heads were heaping praise on the youth vote. They credit the youth vote as the agents of change, and they're the reason why Obama's in power. Young voter turn out was high, and they overwhelmingly favoured Obama. Huzzahs for young people!

I watched that in disdain, and here's why. Where was the youth vote in 2000? 2004? Simply put, in those elections, I would argue that the young adult demographic didn't really care too much about politics. Even if they say they did, a lot of them didn't bother showing up to vote. Suddenly, they decide to come out and vote, we heap praise on them?

This is the analogy I've come up with. Imagine you have kids and you tell them to clean their room. Time and time again, they don't follow your instructions. However, one anomalous day, they decide to clean their room, and you start to heap praise on them for cleaning the room. Praise is a little silly because you're basically congratulating them on something that they should have been doing all along. In that regard, voting is a civic duty of all citizens, and we should all vote, EVERY TIME. That's probably why the news pundits really annoyed me with their analysis. Why not heap praise on the demographics who consistently show up every time to vote?

More thoughts and observations later.

Oh my goodness, am I ..... old? I'm complaining about young whippersnappers and their voting, and their internets, and their playstations.