Much will be written about minority voter participation in the 2012 election, but I don't think that's what led to the decisive victory for the Obama/Biden ticket. To me, it was the youth vote "what done it."
In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected to the presidency in no small measure because he said he had a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam.
By 1972, the war was still raging; the Watergate Scandal was causing Americans all across the country to ask serious questions about possible involvement of highly-placed members of the Administration (including the president) in what started out as, to quote President Nixon, "a third-rate burglary," and the voting age had been lowered to 18.
Students in all parts of the nation rushed to register to vote. George McGovern, D-SD, was selected to run against the president. Election Day came around but instead of going to vote, young people went to class or to work. Richard Nixon won the election in a landslide, garnering 520 electoral votes.
Skip ahead to 2008. Barack Obama wins the presidency with massive support from minorities, women, and students; in all, he takes 365 electoral votes.
He spends the next 4 years doing what he can in the face of stiff opposition from Republicans and Bluedog Democrats as the nation slowly works its way out of the worst economic downturn since the stock market crash of 1929. He ends the war in Iraq. He orders U.S. forces to assist, but not lay boot one on the ground, in the successful effort to remove Muammar Qadaffi from power in Libya. He negotiates an end to the conflict in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is brought to justice.
Still, the Republicans think they had a sure winner in Mitt Romney, and they work hard, very hard, to elect him in 2012. That didn't happen. What happened?
Students and young adults everywhere organized and made certain that their interests were heard and advanced.
The result? Obama/Biden won, this time with a rather large majority of the popular vote and 329 electoral votes.
1972, meet 2012.
We need not worry for the future of our nation; the kids are all right! They know their civic duty, they know what's important, and they know how to vote.
Many Baby-Boomers feel that they had the world as they knew it in their hands in 1972, but they failed to carry out their plan; they failed to vote.
It may have taken 40 years, but young people in this country have finally done what their elders failed to do--they voted and, whether we're to the right or to the left of center, real change has come to America as a result.
Stanley Gould
Williamsport
Submitted by Virtual Newsroom
