Why have a youth debate?

Mon, 06 Nov 2000 09:00:00 +0000

The 2000 presidential election is close enough that young voters could literally decide its outcome. But the age demographic with the lowest voter turnout is once again floundering for inspiration to vote. This lack of inspiration seems again to be a result, in part, of an unfortunate chicken-and-egg scenario: Young people don't vote because politicians don't address youth concerns, and politicians don't address youth concerns because young people don't vote.

I'm as averse to politics as the next disenfranchised young person. But I also grew up in Lexington, Mass., where the first battle of the American Revolution took place and is re-enacted every year. I've consistently watched young Lexingtonians dress up as colonial militia and pretend to be massacred for my right to vote.

So I vote. Though, I'm embarrassed to say, almost solely in presidential elections. I just never want to cast an uninformed vote, and it takes every scintilla -- every physical and spiritual calorie within my body -- to weed through all the mudslinging and willy-nilly wheedling that politicians do, and perhaps need to do, to get elected. I require four years of political convalescence. That impetus just barely nudged me into the ballot booth for the first two presidential elections I was old enough to vote in: 1988 and 1992.

Presidential Youth Debate

Wed, 25 Oct 2000 12:04:00 +0000

With less than two weeks before the 2000 presidential election, many young voters are floundering for an inspiration to vote. Nearly three-quarters of them probably won't find it by Nov. 7, if the 1996 election is any guide. According to Curtis Gans of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a paltry 28 percent of eligible voters ages 18 to 24 voted in that race, and Gans expects that number to drop this year. The latest MTV/CBS News poll came up with an even scarier stat: Twenty-five percent of young voters can't even name both major-party candidates.

Those who plan to stay at home have probably settled into the comforting circular cop-out of underrepresentation: Young people don't vote because politicians don't address youth concerns, and politicians don't address youth concerns because young people don't vote. But Salon wants to remove that excuse with its 2000 Presidential Youth Debate. George Bush and Al Gore have agreed to answer 10 questions from young voters nationwide, and Salon wants you to help pick them.

Salon.com > Anthony Tedesco

Why have a youth debate?

Presidential Youth Debate