I’ve already discussed the fact that voter turnout was actually lower in this 2008 election than it was in 2004. There was not at all a big upswing in the number of young voters as the media predicted. But, what was significantly different was that the proportion of those voters voting Republican went down. Here’s a graph from Andrew Gelman’s blog that shows what I’m talking about:
So, it looks like this is really where the election of 2008 was lost by the GOP. Greg Mankiw looks at this graph, and reaches this conclusion regarding what the GOP can do to combat this problem, which he believes may be an ongoing situation:
It suggests that the major difference between the past two elections and this one was the youth vote. In this election, the young left the Republican party in droves.
Why? I am not enough of a political scientist to be sure, but recent conversations I have had with some Harvard undergrads have led me to a conjecture: It was largely noneconomic issues. These particular students told me they preferred the lower tax, more limited government, freer trade views of McCain, but they were voting for Obama on the basis of foreign policy and especially social issues like abortion. The choice of a social conservative like Palin as veep really turned them off McCain.
So what does the Republican Party need to do to get the youth vote back? If these Harvard students are typical (and perhaps they are not, as Harvard students are hardly a random sample), the party needs to scale back its social conservatism. Put simply, it needs to become a party for moderate and mainstream libertarians. The actual Libertarian Party is far too extreme in its views to attract these students. And it is too much of a strange fringe group. These students are, after all, part of the establishment. But a reformed Republican Party could, I think, win them back.
Can the Republican Party move in this direction without losing much of its base? I have no idea, but for the GOP, that seems to be the challenge ahead.
I’m sure there will be much written about what the GOP needs to do to remake their party over the next few years, but moving back towards small government fiscal conservatism seems like a good way to attract libertarian younger voters to the party. After all, there’s nothing even remotely libertarian about the Democrats and their big government, tax and spend policies. The question is going to be whether adopting a more libertarian platform on social issues will do more harm than good.
