Machine Politics

You’ve heard this before. A political earthquake is coming–and soon. Young people in their late teens and early 20s are ready to vote like never before. They’re a new and different generation, inclined to vote Democratic in large enough numbers to precipitate a political realignment that could make Democrats the majority party for years and years to come.

Indeed, this could happen. But Republicans shouldn’t panic yet. Political projections like this have a history. In 1972, with 18-to-21-year-olds permitted to vote for president for the first time, George McGovern thought a tidal wave of young people would elect him president over Richard Nixon. McGovern lost by 23.2 percentage points. In 1992 Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. declared that Bill Clinton’s election had touched off a new era of Democratic rule. Two years later, Republicans won both houses of Congress and numerous governorships and state legislatures in a historic landslide.

So there’s reason enough to be skeptical of a realignment led by young folks (or anyone else), but not dismissive. The millennial generation, consisting of those born since 1982, is the largest such cohort in history, bigger than the Baby Boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) and not as conservative as Generation X (1964 to 1982). And millennials, in their initial surges to the polls, voted slightly Democratic in 2004 and overwhelmingly (60 percent) in 2006.

In Millennial Makeover, Morley Winograd and Michael Hais argue that this is just the beginning.

Perhaps they will, but Winograd and Hais aren’t -unbiased observers. Both are California Democrats with extensive political experience, and they indulge at times in Democratic spin. But they have a case, based partly on current political circumstances in which Republicans are retreating and even more on the nature of the new generation: “What does seem clear,” they write, “is that the Democrats’ approach to political and social issues appears more compatible with Millennial attitudes.”

At least for now, I’d add.

How so? Winograd and Hais adopt the generational theory of history invented by William Strauss and Neil Howe that is too complicated to go into here. Suffice it to say, the millennials (aka Generation Y) fit the theory perfectly as civic-minded young people who are socially tolerant, optimistic, academically accomplished, supportive of activist government, and surprisingly partisan. Their time has come and, as luck would have it, right in line with the Strauss-Howe theory.

What’s particularly important is their technological savvy. “The political world is about to be shaken to its core by the arrival of these new capabilities for reaching voters, especially the generation that uses them every moment of every day,” Winograd and Hais insist. We’re talking here about the Internet, YouTube, and iPods, plus the online social networks MySpace and Facebook. For millennials, these are the preferred channels for news and information and for communicating with friends.

Democrats are far ahead of Republicans in using these tools, both to connect with voters and raise money. This has ominous implications. Republicans once led in fundraising through direct mail to millions of small donors and in winning elections with massive TV advertising. But these are less effective today. In 1965 a party could reach 80 percent of 18-to-49-year-olds with three 60-second, prime-time television commercials. Now it would take 117 of these TV spots to achieve 80 percent coverage. The Internet is not only an easier way to contact young people, it’s cheaper.

“History suggests,” according to Winograd and Hais, “that those who find ways to integrate the new technology with existing tactics to produce multi-faceted campaigns that reach all voters will be especially successful in future elections.” Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is the reigning example.

All of this sounds fine until Winograd and Hais get to the shaky foundation on which their realignment scenario rests: “Once individuals take on a party identification,” they write, “they don’t often change it and, as a result, a rising new generation spearheads major shifts in party identification and the political realignment that flows from it.” But the truth is that Democrats don’t yet own the millennial generation, and may never.

The authors of Unconventional Wisdom, three political science professors who specialize in elections, certainly aren’t convinced, nor am I. “We cannot be sure that they will maintain this lopsided support for the Democrats,” they write, “but certainly they start at a point close to the New Deal and Vietnam era voters.”

That young voters often drift to the right as they get older is a widely acknowledged phenom-enon. The Vietnam generation, now 46 to 65 years old, gave Democrats a 24-point advantage in the 1960s, but by 2004 the lead had shrunk to 8 points. Young voters in the Reagan era were slightly Democratic (5 points) in the 1980s, but leaned Republican (6 points) in the George W. Bush era.

I suspect a critical moment for millennials will come, possibly as early as 2010, when they face a political situation they’ve never experienced as voters. So far, their voting habits have been shaped by an unpopular Republican president, a scandal-ridden Republican Congress, and an Iraq war without victory in sight (until recently). No wonder they’re Democrats. The test will come when they’re confronted with a failed Democratic president or a reviled Democratic Congress, or both at once. My guess is that they’ll begin to abandon the Democrats in droves, as they did during the White House years of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

In general, Unconventional Wisdom takes the opposite tack from Millennial Makeover. The rise of millennials is the hot new story in politics, touted by the media and enthusiastically embraced by Democrats. Kaufmann, Petrocik, and Shaw devote themselves to debunking trendy political ideas spouted by the media and commentators. They describe the clash as “political scientists versus political analysts,” and it’s no surprise who wins. And they should win, since the evidence is on their side.

They make an especially compelling case against “the notion that elections are generally won by good campaign strategies and that voters are perennially up for grabs.” This “makes for exciting journalism and television commentary,” but political scientists know otherwise. In the real life of elections, “a predisposition to favor one of the parties .  .  . remains a dominant influence on the political behavior of Americans.” In short, parties have, by far, the greatest impact on the outcome of elections. No other factor comes close.

Another myth is that America is politically polarized. Political elites and activists are polarized, but rank-and-file voters are not. Nor do swing voters come from definable demographic groups like soccer moms or office park dads. They happen to be voters who are “relatively less interested, less engaged, and less informed about politics [and] are spread out across social groups.”

One of the hardy perennials of politics is that undecided voters break decisively for challengers over incumbents. Not empirically true, the authors point out. And the modern gender gap wasn’t caused by women leaving the Republican party. Rather, it’s “a direct result of white men moving from the Democrats to the Republicans.” As for the notion that a big voter turnout favors Democrats, that’s true only if the electoral mood is going their way. Usually turnout is “very nonpartisan.” Also, what matters most about campaigns is not a candidate’s strategy or the ability to attract undecideds: “It is more common to win an election by disproportionately activating and mobilizing your supporters than by persuading undecided voters,” write Kaufmann, Petrocik, and Shaw.

We’re flooded this year with political books, including at least five instructing conservatives and Republicans on how to rethink their ideas and policies. But if you’d rather concentrate on electoral politics, Millennial Makeover and Unconventional Wisdom should satisfy. One predicts the future, the other deconstructs the conventional wisdom of politics.

What more could you ask for?

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.