Getting the youth vote

[tangent4ronpaul]

Young people have cell phones, not land lines. That means they generally don't get polled.
We've got a huge population of retiring baby boomers that outpaces the youth vote.

If we want them, we have to appeal to their concerns and self interest:

This summer only 20% of high school students are able to find summer jobs.
In the 16-29yo demographic, unemployment is higher than any other – it's like 29-39%, I think the latter.
College tuition increases, vastly outpaces inflation and cost of living increases. If someone goes to college, they will find themselves under a mountain of debt, they can't get out of and likely won't be able to pay off because most aren't finding jobs.The ever increasing number of wars an push by some in Congress to re-instate the draft.
Under-employment where those jobs tend to be minimum wage ones. Turning into a service economy.
The erosion of privacy.
Inflation and being worse of than their parents were.
Possibly not being able to afford to have children.
Government attacks on the Internet, file sharing, etc.
Things like this...

We really need a slim jim or flyer targeted specifically to HS and College students.

Getting them:

Reach out to our existing supporters asking them to take a survey
Besides an opt-in mailing list, asking about skills and such, ask:
Do you have children in HS?
Do you have children in college

If the answer to either of the above are yes, point them to YAL and YoY and encourage them to join a chapter or start one. One thing I don't like about those organizations is that they are/were separated from the Meetups and therefor robbed us of the people with the most free time and energy. Thing tabling and door knocking. Hopefully we can change that this time.

If in HS, encourage then to start a HS underground newspaper project. Details here:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...hool+newspaper

If in College, encourage them to seek positions at the College Newspaper, radio or TV station. We should network these people, and do things like sending out CD's of liberty music.

Do chipins for starter material / slim jims for youth, and covering initial print runs of HS papers.

Also encourage them to go out to senior centers, nursing centers, etc. and give talks to people there about the economic and world situation:

About how Paul has the only plan that will save social security and how soon it will go away if he doesn't succeed.
About how all their savings and fixed income is loosing value due to inflation
About raising the retirement age, an why that doesn't work on several different levels.
About medical rationing and their becoming not usful contributors to society in the progressive view.
Etc.

In any event, if we can get students across the country in key positions as to media delivery and clubs, their numbers should grow.

Thoughts?

-t

[GunnyFreedom]

maybe if we ban cheetos xbox and couches, the rest of the plan will work perfectly. until then, good luck, you are going to need it! I utterly gave up on the under 24 vote after 2008. I saw it in SC, I saw it in AL, kids acting like they were so into Ron Paul, the day after the election, "awww maaaan, I was soooo hung over, I didn't vote because it just didn't matter, and I felt like sht."

I spent the majority of m effort in 2008 on the under 25 crowd. When I did my lists for State House in 2010, I immediately struck out anybody under 25. Learned my lesson the hard way.

[GunnyFreedom]

Sorry, not trying to be an @$$, my cynicism with under-25 voters comes from experience. Hopefully yours will be better than mine, but spending a lot of time on them didn't help us in 2008, so just know that ahead of time.

[Napoleon's Shadow]

Gunny is right.

The "youth" crowd doesn't vote in numbers, and when they do it's for Democrats.

The core of the Republican voting bloc are people are over the age of 50. Those are the ones we need to get to vote for Ron.

[acptulsa]

Ron Paul has everything we need to get the youth vote in droves except the cattle prod necessary to get them to participate.

Anyone have a bus that looks like a Porsche? If so, you might get them to the polls...

[matt0611]

Sorry, not trying to be an @$$, my cynicism with under-25 voters comes from experience. Hopefully yours will be better than mine, but spending a lot of time on them didn't help us in 2008, so just know that ahead of time.

Gotta agree with this.
Every little bit helps and I've seen figures showing that younger republicans tend to support Ron Paul vs establishment people like Romney, but overall they just don't turn out that much and when they do they go democrat.

The youth will vote for whoever is "cool". Obama was "cool" in 2008. If we make Ron "cool" in 2012 we will get more youth vote.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Well the underground paper project is "cool" as are DJ's - they get a following - that's why I was suggesting that.

in '08 10% of voters were 18-24, however 66% of them voted for Obama. Then again, that was before they found out that he was Bush on steroids... I think he's largely lost the youth vote this time. That leaves us with the only anti-establishment, counter-culture candidate. Youth could be huge this time.

Don't think of Paul as a republican candidate - think of him as a anti-war candidate, get government out of your life, pro-pot, and so on - yeah, we have the counter-culture candidate and that makes him "cool".

One contingent we can completely write off is blacks - I just noticed that 98% of them voted for Obama. Hispanics voted for him in in the 62-64% range too... Might get some, but Paul's positions aren't going to get us much support among illegals and their families.

-t

[GunnyFreedom]

Well the underground paper project is "cool" as are DJ's - they get a following - that's why I was suggesting that.

in '08 10% of voters were 18-24, however 66% of them voted for Obama. Then again, that was before they found out that he was Bush on steroids... I think he's largely lost the youth vote this time. That leaves us with the only anti-establishment, counter-culture candidate. Youth could be huge this time.

Don't think of Paul as a republican candidate - think of him as a anti-war candidate, get government out of your life, pro-pot, and so on - yeah, we have the counter-culture candidate and that makes him "cool".

One contingent we can completely write off is blacks - I just noticed that 98% of them voted for Obama. Hispanics voted for him in in the 62-64% range too... Might get some, but Paul's positions aren't going to get us much support among illegals and their families.

-t

RP polls better with black voters than any other Republican. Weakening Obama's core support will pay dividends in the general. Not to spend inordinate amounts of time, but that is not a voting block to write off.