In a time when our President was stuck in foreign policy quagmire in th Middle East, and there was also an economic crisis threatening every American household, it's easy to understand how an 18 year old college freshman from Indiana would cast a vote for change and a new direction for the future.
It's what I did - but the year was 1980, and Barack Obama was not running for President, he was voting for the first time as well. The hope and change candidate who prevailed that year was Ronald Reagan. But he wasn't the candidate I supported. I voted for John Anderson. I voted for John Anderson, who promised he would raise the tax on gasoline by 50 cents a gallon at a time when gas prices had soared more than at any previous time in our history.
But John Anderson would not send me, or my friends, off to war. John Anderson was different from Jimmy Carter, who had miserably failed to deal with the crisis of Americans held hostage in Iran. Jimmy Carter has also reinstituted the Selective Service registration, in the event he at some point decided we needed to draft young men to go to war. Jimmy Carter's friends, who have tried to rewrite history to make him into a lover of peace should include that fact in their praise and love of him.
John Anderson was also quite different from Ronald Reagan. Reagan, the Supply Side tax cutter. Reagan, the man Jimmy Carter's campaign tried to portray as a mad bomber. And Reagan, the man who wanted to the Supreme Court to reverse its decision in Roe v Wade.
I did not care that Reagan wanted to cut taxes - it didn't matter to me, I wasn't making any money at the time. I thought his idea of indexing tax brackets to inflation was a good one, but not that important to me at the time. I was an abortion supporter back then, but didn't choose my vote on that issue at the time. I was worried. I was worried that my young life was going to be put on the block for a war I might not support.
No, I wasn't happy with Iran - no American was. But like many people, I believed a few well placed bombs would take care of the Iranians, end of story. But I did not share what appeared to be Reagan's utter distaste for the Russians. Reagan was a devout anti-communist, and it seemed as if he would be eager to engage warfare with the Russians on any soil at any time they called his bluff.
So like the younger voters of 2008, I chose to vote for someone other than a Republican because I did not like the aroma of war that lingered in the political forum. Within four years, however, I had a change of heart. Reagan had done an exceptional job of dealing with both the Iranians and the Soviets, and had overseen a reversal in our country's economic fortunes at the same time.
He was becoming a hero to me. Why? Not so much because he succeeded, but because he had restored our faith in self-governance, self-reliance and limiting the size and scope of government. And everywhere you looked around him, the result was very positive. Instead of sending me off to war, he had stared down the Soviets on his terms. He had given me a rekindled passion I had lost for heartfelt belief that America's founding principles of freedom and individual liberty were right and good.
It's interesting to think of the choice the first time voters of 2004 will have four years from now. They very well may supported change, and voted for Barack Obama, for the same reasons I voted for change in 1980. Each time, the overall electorate voted for change for similar reasons.
But come 2008, will our newest voters stay with Barack Obama, so like Reagan in his optimism, even temperment and oratorical skill - but so different in terms of policy choices? Or will they seek out a candidate with he ideological moorings of Ronald Reagan, who was himself like Obama in reaching out to voters no one thought would support him, but very different in choosing to believe that a more empowered people would accomplish more than a more empowered government?
The bonds that unite young voters to Barack Obama are strong. This is true even though the ideology he promotes is quite different than their own. If a strong, unifying voice that is equal to Obama in rhetorical skill arises in opposition to him, this group will be challenged quite hard to decide anew who they will support. If not, the years ahead will present different candidates, along continuing ideological poles.
Will the younger voters make America a country of a Democratic majority for a generation? What do you think?
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