The 2008 presidential campaign has prompted many young voters to get involved - volunteering in campaigns, and taking time to participate in State Cacuses and Primaries across the country. As enthusiasm grows for the 2008 presidential election, campaigners are taking notice of these younger voters who are concerned primarily with
Over half of young voters identify themselves as Democrats. With a competitive primary taking place between the first African American presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama and the first female presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, an increasing number of young Americans see the election as one of the most important of their time, and are participating in the political process for the first time. After record turnout of young voters in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire and Florida primaries, the demographic could help decide the largest primary election in U.S. History.
So far no candidate has benefited more from young voter support than Illinois Senator Barack Obama, especially in Iowa and South Carolina, where he got more than half the youth vote. In South Carolina, exit polls showed his youth support at 67%. Obama's message is attractive to many young people. Young voters relate with Obama because he is emotional, spiritual, inspirational, and positive. His message of change is attractive to younger generations who take in account today's political choices as the path to their future and the future of their children. Many compare Obama's inspriational qualities to that of John F. Kennedy.
Obama continues to gather growing youth support and volunteers through new-media strategies aimed, at least in part, to Internet networking sites, often used by younger voters including, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. These more sophisticated social-networking sites were not a factor during the 2004 election.
There are more than 500 Obama groups on Facebook. One of the first, Students for Barack Obama, was created in 2007 by Meredith Segal, a junior at Bowdoin College who first heard of Obama when he gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. She created a Facebook page to encourage the freshman senator to run for president and invited people to join.
Students for Barack Obama is now a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members and chapters at 80 colleges. It is the most organized grass-roots student movement in the presidential campaign so far. Members of the website have the ability to communicate with each other, search for local rallies, read Obama’s speeches and stances, and read the most recent coverage of Obama in the newspapers.
2008 Presidential Candidates are recognizing the impact of the younger generation on the coming election and continue to speak and rally at college campuses across the United States. For up to date information about the 2008 presidential race visit www.cnn.com
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