Davis, 21, now has the job Clinton coveted long ago. But in other ways his story, surroundings and outlook couldn’t be more different. There is no war or draft to give politics life-and-death urgency. Race remains an issue, but in a less sweeping, more personal way. There were incidents of intolerance on campus last year–a menorah was toppled, racial and anti-gay graffiti were scrawled on walls. Davis, a diligent, soft-spoken African-American from Oregon, won as a symbol of unity. And what about summer, when a young pol’s fancy turns to campaigning? “Politics for politics’ sake is very dangerous,” he said. He took Manhattan instead–a job at Goldman Sachs.
“Generation Y” is reaching majority in politics. The first demographic cadre to exceed the boomers in size and affluence, the “millennials” will begin coming of age in this November’s election, when some 14 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 21 will be eligible to vote in a presidential contest for the first time. George W. Bush and Al Gore have geared up vast “youth vote” operations, and Ralph Nader–who hopes to become the Pied Piper of 2000–now is running a Third Way children’s crusade. The campaigns know they’re on to something: together with Hispanics and white women, Gen-Yers (along with the wave just ahead of them, the Gen-Xers) could decide the outcome in November.
If they show up. Reared in relative comfort, mesmerized by an expanding array of entertainments, eager for community service but deeply suspicious of traditional politics, America’s youngest adults are less likely than any before them to actually vote. Bill Clinton was at the leading edge of the boomer years, when the voting age was lowered in 1972 and nearly half the young went to the polls. But the percentage has been dropping slowly ever since. This fall, experts predict, fewer than a third of all voters under 30 will vote–and only a quarter of those newly eligible in Generation Y. “For young people, there just doesn’t seem to be a lot of passion or purpose in capital-P politics,” says Davis.
In fact, millennials are quite interested in civic life, but define it in more personal terms than their parents do. The young even express grudging interest in electoral politics, but only if it’s defined as something other than a two-party system they see as irrelevant, corrupt or worse. In a special NEWSWEEK Poll–the first national poll specifically aimed at the youngest new voters–Generation Yers made the point clear. Nearly two thirds (64 percent) agreed that the country “should have a third major political party.” The younger the voter, the more likely they are to feel that way. “Democrats and Republicans, Gore and Bush–they all seem like so much blah, blah, blah,” says John Dervin, 26, political and debates director for Youth Vote 2000, a nonpartisan civic group.
Young voters tend to doubt that there’s a connection between going into a voting booth and addressing a problem that matters to them. Schools spend less effort on civic education these days. And ceremonies that once transmitted a sense of respect for politics–like families’ watching the nightly news–have vanished. Studies show that “kids just look for news on the Internet,” says Harvard government professor Tom Patterson. And what’s new typically has nothing to do with politics.
The heroes admired by Generation Y are decidedly nonpolitical; in the NEWSWEEK Poll, Bill Gates led the list (48 percent). That makes sense to a generation reared in the affluence and job stress created by the computer revolution. So how does a politician move Gen Y? By working the campuses, for one thing. Jesse Ventura drew heavily among students at the University of Minnesota. In Madison, Wis., Tammy Baldwin got elected to Congress by organizing the University of Wisconsin campus so carefully that on Election Day volunteers brought pizza and soda to her supporters on the polling lines. Nader has been working the campuses since Clinton was in college and has visited more than 50 this year alone. Even Pat Buchanan’s campus work paid off when students helped him collect enough petitions to get on the ballot.
Community service is another route to young political hearts. “Service” requirements have become standard in schools; a recent UCLA study found that 75 percent of entering freshmen had done such work. Politicians, fearful of proposing big new spending programs, have joined with churches and nonprofit groups to preach the ethic of volunteerism. Colin Powell (admired by 39 percent of those polled by NEWSWEEK) chose to head a volunteer group rather than run for office. The Gore campaign is trying to tap into that spirit, organizing “Service Saturdays” in which campaign volunteers work on nonpolitical projects. Goreans see it as a way to reflect their boss’s own values in a way young people can understand. “Often candidates don’t reach out to students in their own venues,” says Alison Friedman, a Stanford senior on leave for Gore in Nashville. “You’re not going to reach young voters through the 5 o’clock news. They’re not home!” The Gore and Bush campaigns are trotting out young family personalities as well: Karenna Gore Schiff and George P. Bush.
For Gen-Yers, issues can’t be too individualized and personal. Manichaean simplicity has given way to emotional, even confessional, “identity politics.” At Georgetown, ethnic and gender groups attract the best organizational minds. Maria Goravanchi, of Houston, is a student at the School of Foreign Service (where Clinton studied) and wants to be a diplomat. Her main interest? The Iranian Cultural Society, which she helped to found. The same attitude drives everyone from Southeast Asians to kosher-keeping Jews to gays, lesbians, transgender students and vegans.
It’s all much more complicated than in the old days. During the Vietnam War, for example, Sen. George McGovern’s anti-draft youth organizers would roam dormitories giving what they called “the blood speech.” (“We’re going to die in the jungle unless we stop this stupid war.”) “Now there’s no one issue or U.N. to bring us together,” says Colleen Jolly, a Georgetown sophomore. “Everyone has a cause of their own.” Even Jolly. She “grew up Irish Catholic” but is now a Wiccan studying occult rituals. She works hard to explain to the Jesuits on campus that she doesn’t worship Satan.
“Identity politics” are too messy for the campaign trail. The best way to cut through the babble of ethnicities and the Internet is for the candidates to explain precisely how voting would actually improve or protect young adult lives. The idea is to keep it real. In the Nader campaign, that means raising allegations of “corporate greed” by noting that “predatory” bank companies paper campuses with credit-card applications–but don’t distribute the fine-print details of their interest rates. For Bush it’s his Social Security plan, which would allow voters to invest a portion of payroll taxes in the stock markets. The youngest voters–reared during the longest sustained rally in history–love the plan. They favored it by an 8-1 margin in one recent poll. “Bush hit a bull’s-eye with that one,” said Dervin.
But the fight for the youth vote has just begun. Bush and his rivals know that they had better keep firing away. They are aiming at an elusive target: Generation Yers. Most of them would rather be almost anywhere next Nov. 7 than in a voting booth. The rest of the country is waiting for the generational statement they make–if and when they finally get there.
