By: Jamal Simmons
The word change is said so many times this campaign season it is becoming a cliché. However there is a reason it is on the tip of every tongue. Americans are overdue for a change.
In the United States, we usually have a change election every 12 years. Think about 1968 when the country was looking for someone to find an end to the Vietnam War and restore order after a decade of civil unrest. In 1980, Americans saw Ronald Reagan as their answer to restoring faith in our nation after Vietnam, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis. In 1992, Bill Clinton’s election signaled the end of the “Me Generation” ushered in by Reaganism. It has been sixteen years since 1992 and after a generation of Bushes and Clintons occupying the White House, this year, in the words of Aretha Franklin, “A change is gonna come.”
This hunger for change seems especially strong among young voters age 18-29 who have voted in unprecedented numbers. This year, over six million young people voted in the primaries. While young people voted overwhelmingly for a Democrat, over 1.7 million of them voted for a Republican before John McCain won their nomination contest. And McCain and Obama were the overwhelming favorites of young people in early primary polls.
According to David Shribman, Executive Editor of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, research shows that most people become politically aware at about age nine. Others put it as old as 12. That means that college age voters today came into their political awareness sometime around 1998. What has happened in those last 10 years of politics?
In1998, the nation experienced a tumultuous year that resulted in the President of the United States being impeached in December.
On Election Night in 2000, the nation was prepared for either Al Gore or George Bush to win or lose. Instead we had a virtual tie and the country went through 36 days of a battle to recount the votes cast in Florida. Ultimately, George Bush was awarded the presidency by a 5-4 vote of the United States Supreme Court and took office with little confidence of the American people that he had actually won the election.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. The country was shaken, the world was united in support of us, and the President had a moment to call upon each of us to do SOMETHING to help. Instead he told us to go shopping and take the kids to Disneyland and then rebuffed the help of our allies abroad. Opportunity lost.
That attack on our nation was followed by a war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda, our attackers, and the Taliban who harbored them. The world was united in response. Following that initial success, the president chose neither to finish what we started in Afghanistan, nor to go after other Al Qaeda bases in the Middle East. Instead, in 2003 the nation was directed into another war in Iraq that many Americans still struggle to comprehend the rationale for. After more than 4,000 American heroes have died and many thousands more have been wounded, the Bush Administration still struggles to explain our continued presence there.
Then, in late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 storm, hit the shores of the Gulf Coast of the United States. Over 2,000 lives were lost and millions of dollars of damage was done, but the nation sat riveted for days as citizens of New Orleans were kept waiting for Federal help. Despite having four years to prepare for another crisis after 9/11 and three days warning about the magnitude of this storm, the Federal Government was left flat-footed. Americans lost faith in our President’s ability to protect us.
Young voters, raised during these ten years of turmoil, appear ready to grab hold of the reigns of their nation. To complicate matters, the nation is experiencing a serious economic downturn coupled with soaring gas prices that are pushing voters a generation or two older to join these young people in the desire to chart a new course. It is in this environment that Senators Barack Obama and John McCain will compete for the presidency.
Obama has articulated the change message most adroitly in the primaries, but many voters think of John McCain as a “maverick” who will stand up against special interests. Each of them will do his best to deny the change mantle to his opponent and capture it for himself. To put it simply, the Senator best able to convince these voters that he will bring change to America is the man we will inaugurate next January as the 44th President of the United States.
Jamal Simmons is president of New Future Communications, a Democratic public relations firm based in Washington, DC. He can often be seen discussing politics as an analyst on cable news programs.
