One of the distressing fact we need to take away from the most recent election is the effect of the youth vote. We can sadly no longer dismiss this phenomena as something the candidate defined as the loser depends on. As shown hereand herethe youth vote turned out in great numbers for the One and we consequently faced a severe obstacle for electoral victory.

Now what is most distressing is what is suggested as to why we lost the youth vote. Admittedly trying to pin down “one” reason for such a multicausal result is almost laughable because the reasons could range from: the almost noxious “cult-like” atmosphere of Obama’s campaign that campuses (being a Graduate Student I am aware of this) were literally bathed in, the empty Change rhetoric that allowed you to tack on whatever you’d like to Obama, youthful affinity for the Democratic party, the youth not knowing how the world works, they voted for “Bread and Circuses”, etc. However, one thing that we have to note is that some of these voters were quite conservative in their fiscal rhetoric and yet had problems voting for a party which they saw as one of “Social Conservatism”. Now granted this can be overblown as if you truly cared about fiscal responsibility it is hard to think that Barack “Socialism rocks!” Obama was the right choice. Yet I can see the generally uniformed thinking “well looking at what I know (GOP circa 2000-2008) why not try something new since they certainly weren’t fiscally conservative?”. Yes yes, Obama’s an idiot when it comes to economics but we certainly didn’t help by having an economic illiterate as a candidate as well. However, it is true that we do have some problems with if not the socially conservative platform at least the way we go about arguing our point.

Now let me start off by saying I am a rock-ribbed social conservative and I do not intend to go all “David Frum” on anyone (though to be fair I think he actually is a deep thinker on trying to restructure conservatism, while some others merely tack that way to sound “sophisticated”). However, this is an issue we need to address as we cannot be electorally successful by dropping that part of conservatism, nor can social conservatives continue to do what we always have done and expect it to work. Additionally, for those who want to jettison social conservatism I give you CA passing the anti-Gay Marriage amendment. Whatever your position on that specific issue, and we can all disagree, I use this as an example of socially conservative positions still being electorally successful almost anywhere. Thus, this is not as if we are deigning to indulge a small fringe element in the country, as it sometimes seems those who suggest we should “adapt” imply.

Read More →