By John Talty: Subscribe to John's RSS feed
February 25, 2012 11:20 AM EST
An impressive number of young conservatives made the trek to Washington in mid-February for the Conservative Political Action Conference -- more than one-half of the attendees were between 18 and 29 years of age.
The CPAC attendees represent just a small proportion of the collective 8 million young people eligible to vote for the first time this year, but they provided an interesting look into what can be expected next fall.
Among the Republican presidential candidates, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania appeared to generate the most interest among young people at the political summit -- every other person seemed to be wearing a Santorum sticker -- but it was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who won CPAC 2012's straw poll.
Romney Struggles to Energize Young Conservatives
Romney wins at CPAC and in the Maine caucuses may give him a bit of momentum coming into the Arizona and Michigan primary elections on Tuesday, but he chronically appears to struggle at connecting with young people. While Democratic President Barack Obama engaged young people with unique means on his way to a convincing win over U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election, Romney has seemingly struggled with energizing the conservative base despite his front-runner status throughout the Republican primaries.
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Those struggles could be due to Romney's inability to make his cause bigger than himself.
"There's something immeasurable that you can't purchase in politics, and that's passion," Paul T. Conway, president of Generation Opportunity, a nonpartisan group that appeals to young adults. "It's the fervent belief of young activists."
Generation Opportunity has more than 2.3 million "Likes" on its different Facebook accounts and provides a nice insight into the minds of the notoriously finicky young voting bloc. Last April, Generation Opportunity polled so-called Millennials and learned that 77 percent of the respondents were delaying major life changes due to economic restraints. These delays included buying a home, paying off a student loan, and starting a family.
Conway, who previously worked as chief of staff to U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao in the Bush administration, believes that those individual ramifications are what are frequently left out of the narrative about the economy. He said that some poll questions will ask about the biggest issues such as the economy, but they won't delve further into what it is about the economy that is specifically impactful.
Young Conservatives Concerned about U.S. Economy
The impact of a poor U.S. economy was a topic of frequent discussion at CPAC, especially among young conservatives. Corina Cappabianca, the president of New York University's College Republicans, called the economy far and away the biggest issue in the coming election and one that many of her peers would make their voting decision based on.
She indicated hope that Obama could successfully turn around an economy beset by a 8.3 percent unemployment rate and rising debt levels, but that as things currently stood she didn't think it would happen before the November general election.
A similar mentality is what could drive young people in droves to the election booths in November to rebuke Obama's policies and inject a new candidate to fix things in Washington.
"Four years later at 2012 when you have unemployment numbers at the way that they are, especially among young Americans, to think that inviting people to the political dance in 2008 and not expecting them to hold you accountable for results is total fallacy," Conway said. "This demographic is very engaged in what is going on and they know how bad the economy is. They know in personal terms what the lack of opportunity means."
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