When Obama won 2 years ago with a historic 66% of the 18 to 30 year old voter group. Now the under 30 voters are feeling disappointed as they had hoped to "play a bigger role in the Obama agenda." Why did Obama only seem to focus on the young voter when beneficial for him? A combination of hard feelings and the midterm effect has made the under 30 group "less involved and more ambivilant." This is an example of the decline in social capital. The under 30 voter group was coherent and mobilized when they believed in the promises Obama made. Now young voters are not doing their part because of "dissipation of trust relations by government."
Aria Greenberg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/us/politics/01generationo.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=no%20young%20voters&st=cse
Aria,
ReplyDeleteCapital is any stock of things society needs to move it forward, whether it be social capital, human capital, financial capital, etc. In this case, what Obama was doing was essentially investing in human capital, though later it ended up making a decline in social capital. His motives were good and in the right direction, according to him, but now the results are different than he'd expected. Mr. Obama “was busy, frankly, dealing with digging us out and making sure we didn’t fall into another Great Depression.” Instead of letting all ages know they were equally important, he put an emphasis on the younger voters during voting time, but not afterward, causing him to lose his most essential fans.
Elise Leppert
I believe that this point is true up to some point. It can be understood that a candidate does want to gain as many votes as possible. If this is not the case then the greater good of the candidate can not be administered. The roles that are now a "disappointment" can be attributed to possible loss in the president telling us what to do. But in many cases in life we can see that we must find what is the right thing to do and then do it. There are many things that the under 30 age voters can do, but not all things that are requested of the people are the most interesting, involving thing to do. I believe this article has truth to is but must in some way be biased.
ReplyDeleteajay bohra
Everyone is being critical of Obama and this is just another crowd jumping on the bandwagon. Obama was doing what any other candidate would have done in trying to get everyone's vote. And for voters in that age group to already be this critical of him is not right. He has so many other people on his back and he cannot impress everyone. He is doing his best to better our country and cannot keep every single person happy along the way. It is not like our country was in shape when he came into presidency. I think he deserves a break, not just from voters at ages 18-30, but everyone. Let the man breathe and do what he plans on doing without jumping down his throat.
ReplyDelete-Jordan Goodman
I believe that Obama is getting a bad rap up to this point. The stimulus saved 3.3 million jobs, the GDP is up 2%, auto sales are up 21%, and consumer spending is rising faster then any time in the last four years. The truth is, most young people don't want to be involved. After the excitement of the election the interest in politics for the 18-30 age group wanes.
ReplyDelete