We did it! I told everyone we were going to blow away our goal of “2 million more in 2004”, and we did, with 4.6 million more voters under the age of 30 exercising their democratic right than we had in 2000! It was a beautiful thing. We turned out at the same rate as old people for the first time, which was great, because when I arrived at my polling station I saw there were enough young people to assist each old person in getting up the stairs safely. True story.
I want to thank you all individually because as I said in my last column, I can now proudly display my trophy from the Youth Vote Coalition, and I am now in the planning stages for an honorary ceremony in my house, where I will hire a band to play the Star-Spangled Banner and I will offer cookies shaped like little American flags. You’re invited if you can find out where I live (and you bring the cookies and the band).
Maybe I’ll invite the Smackdown Your Vote! dancers from Sacred Heart University, who you saw in the RAW package two weeks ago…
Election night was a wild one for all of us. Your favorite non-partisan political correspondent was invited to the Republican “Victory” Party at the Ronald Reagan Building – yes, the party you saw on TV, I’m big time – where I got to see a predominantly young crowd with their shiny happy faces expectantly watching Fox News (and occasionally CNN). You could cut the tension with a knife. Within hours, these young people who had given months of their lives as employees or volunteers in the Bush campaign, would get to see if their personal investment in democracy paid off, although with that many young people involved, we were all winners. As it turned out, we didn’t find out that night, which really killed what should have been a climactic culmination of the evening, no matter who was declared the victor.
And just to make sure you y’all know I’m non-partisan, I would have rather been at the Kerry party, because it was only four miles from my house. Along with a better location (for me), the Democrats also had much, much better music. I’m sorry I’m just not a big country music fan. I grew up above the Mason-Dixon line and still have all my teeth.
Just kidding. I was a cowboy for Halloween. No fooling.
But I digress. It was a big day for all of us, because we showed those fat cats in Washington that they’ll have to come through us in future elections, and over the next four years we’ll have a bigger voice in the political debate.
Well, everyone except my little sister. It’s been my goal to reach every young person I could with the message, “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, the important thing is that you VOTE!” SDYV and our partner organizations obviously did an incredible job reaching millions of new voters, but somehow we missed my sister. I guess that one is my fault.
She’s a 21-year-old senior at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. For anonymity purposes, we’ll refer to her simply as Mary N. I spoke with her yesterday, and with total disregard to what I’ve spent the last few years doing, she shared with me this tale.
She and her roommate were heading down to the polls on their campus. They come from very different ideological backgrounds, and therefore were going to vote against each other. Apparently the roommate realized this and said, “Why should we bother, because we’re just going to cancel out each other’s vote.”
My little sister, instead of saying, “No, the important thing is that we both vote to help increase turnout among 18-30 year-olds, thus giving us a larger voice in politics,” said, “Duh, sure.”
She explained herself this way: Her roommate was from Wisconsin, a major battleground state, and her vote could have been very significant. My little sister was voting absentee in Illinois (I don’t know why she chose to do that), which was going to be a blue state no matter what she did. Therefore, my sister thought, “Hey, because my roommate isn’t too bright, I can make my vote count in a swing state by taking a vote away from the guy I don’t want to win.”
While I applaud her for her cleverness (apparently both brilliance and a penchant for deception run in the family), in the grand scheme of things I think it was a mistake. Early polls indicate that we got 20.9 million 18-30 year-olds to the polls, and I blame her and her friend for not making it an even 21 million.
So at Thanksgiving this year I’m telling our parents so they punish her, and we won’t give her any turkey. The rest of you guys can eat as much as you want, because you’ve earned it.
Congratulations.
However, it doesn’t end here. Stay tuned for more information on what’s going to happen in 2005. Smackdown Your Vote! is just gearing up!
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