Youth Voice: Sprinting To A Tie On Super Tuesday

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Super Tuesday was a hyped-up sprint to a virtual political tie By Chuck Lippstreu, Daily Nebraskan

Sen. Barack Obama gained major political points early, making waves in states like Connecticut and Missouri where Sen. Hillary Clinton was supposed to clean his optimistic clock. Later in the evening, Clinton slowed the Obama momentum with her own win in California to go along with a big save in Massachusetts.

But even if the sprint is done, the marathon starts Saturday -- and Clinton's shin splints are starting to show.

Recall that a year ago, Clinton took for granted her ability to undermine challengers in early voting states before delivering the death blow on Super Tuesday. That was the plan. There was no other plan. Then again, no one on the Clinton side could have guessed that she would still face a challenger after Feb. 6, let alone a challenger who had outraised her by more than $18 million in just a month.

Obama planned for, fundraised for, and organized for a long-haul race to the nomination. Clinton just sort of hoped that wouldn't happen. Her muscles are strained, Obama's are fresh -- bad news for Hillary, considering the starting gun for the real nomination race fires in three days.

Uptick in youth turnout insignificant for real change By Kristin Butler. The Duke Chronicle

If turnout among young voters is any indication, the 2008 Presidential Primaries have featured some of the most dynamic and engaging races in recent memory. So far this year, ballots cast by voters under age 30 have tripled in Florida, Iowa and South Carolina, with participation rising by a less-impressive (if still encouraging) 15 percent in New Hampshire.

The under-30 crowd was also expected to boost overall turnout in yesterday's Super Tuesday contests, with officials in key states like Oklahoma, Texas, California and Illinois already reporting spikes in registration totals and absentee ballots.

Such figures continue an eight-year trend reflecting increased interest and engagement on the part of young people. They will not, however, guarantee young voters political legitimacy in the November general elections and beyond.

For one thing, participation among 18-29-year-olds has been so dismal for so long that even 300 percent gains in 2008 left youth turnout in Florida at just 13 percent; although this group comprises 25 percent of the voting-eligible population, it represented just 8 percent of all ballots cast in the Sunshine State. Roughly comparable results were seen in Iowa and New Hampshire, where record turnouts yielded young voters just 18 and 16 percent of the vote, respectively.

With little wealth and even less influence over the unions and other organizations whose endorsements can make or break a candidacy, young voters' primary strength lies in their numbers. For that reason, yesterday's expected uptick in youth participation will be a laudable development, but insufficient for meaningful change.

Let's get serious By James Larkin. The Harvard Crimson

As I was walking down Garden Street in Cambridge Tuesday afternoon, I saw some residents hanging an Obama '08 sign over their fence, which elicited scattered whooping from passers-by, mostly undergraduates. I clapped. Moments later, though, I cringed a little at the display, which wouldn't have seemed out of place at this week's Super Bowl party; I couldn't help but feel that this momentary applause was just the kind of moon-faced optimism at which the 'serious' Clinton supporters have been scoffing all along. Have all these students for Obama drunk the kiddie Kool-Aid? Maybe we actually deserve the rhetorical head-patting that we've been getting from the Clinton camp: "Go play somwhere; the grown-ups are talking."

I decided that this wasn't the case, though, and certainly not this Tuesday. As Sen. John McCain looks like the Republican nominee, nothing could be more serious than Barack Obama's candidacy. The pillar of experience on which the Clinton campaign is founded has splintered mightily over the course of the primary season. Its omnipresence on banners and buses has also drawn attention to its uselessness as a measure of actual executive aptitude (see: the resumes of Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon).

The fact is, Clinton and Obama share a great deal of substance, and the battle actually ought to be decided on style; somehow, superficiality has become the pragmatic solution. McCain - still operating under an inexplicable mirage of centrism - could either make a nightmare of the Democrats' dream election year, or he could be given a fair fight. He could appear in the general election as either an overwhelming bastion of experience and a steady commander-in-chief, or he could come to embody the status quo, become in the public eye the hawkish geriatric in the light of something new. And all this depends on the Democratic nominee.

But as the results from yesterday's voting trickle in, it would appear that nothing on that front is yet resolved. We'll see whether or not America can bring itself to get serious.

Super Tyrannical Tuesday By Peter Chen. Indiana Daily Student

News networks trumpet Super Tuesday and the entire primary process as some great triumph of democracy -- a whole field of candidates whittled down to the last one. In fact, the primary process is governed by the select few, from the small delegate count on the Republican side to the superdelegate tyranny on the Democratic one.

Furthermore, the narrative of each campaign gets hammered into place from the start, as candidates who don't fit the media image of "viable" find themselves unceremoniously shunted aside. Media elites who write the storyline revel in their position as kingmakers, flirting with campaigns and ideas even after they've grown beyond control (see: Mike Huckabee).

Today, the old cliche of "letting the voters decide" seems quaint alongside the punditocracy's vaunted "momentum" and the outrageous primary schedule that regularly favors some states while ignoring others. Although I have little stomach for the Clinton campaign's derision of the horse race as a "popularity contest," I also take issue with the abundance of "experts" who seem to believe that they decide how people vote on demographic and social lines.

With Super Tuesday now behind us, the spin invariably begins, coloring every race from here on out. Will the focus be delegates or "momentum"? Total votes or projected polling? More importantly, are any of these indicators any way to choose a leader, short of drawing names out of a hat?

Maybe, for once, pundits and press will focus on the candidates and their issues. But I'm not holding my breath.

America's new national pastime By Chase Cooper, The Indiana Daily Student

Super Tuesday has come and gone, and it looks like this time next year Hillary Clinton or John McCain have a good chance to be the President of the United States.

Super, indeed.

As disturbing as that prospect is for many of us, what is perhaps even more distressing is that after a long, agonizing year of presidential politics, we've still got another nine more months of this nonsense. Remember back before the never-ending campaign season when baseball was America's national pastime?

At least we have Bill Clinton's personal assurances that a race between Hillary and McCain "would be the most civilized election in American history."

Please excuse me if this makes me chuckle briefly. I'd hate to mock the promises of a former president so widely noted for hi uncommon integrity. But if you believe what he said about Hillary and McCain, I've got some lovely property along the White River in beautiful Arkansas that I'd like to sell you.

So if you want to spend the next nine months singing "Kumbaya" with the Maverick and the Matriarch, fine. As for me, I've already begun the search for better candidates to take over in 2012. I guess I'm starting to get acclimated to America's new national pastime.

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