Send to a friendOpen Mike, Feb 3-5, 2012
Obama's millennial problem
Barack Obama’s election was supposed to consolidate the millennial generation, 18-29 year olds, as a current and future element of the Democratic base. It was an article of faith among Democrats that Obama’s multi-cultural persona, his cool, and his persistent outreach to millenials are a far stronger draw than a Republican Party whose leaders are older, duller, and, according to liberals, absorbed with the idea of recreating America along pre Mad Men, circa 1950s lines.
Reality has proved more complex. While Obama has steadily led Mitt Romney with 18 to 29 year olds by a comfortable double digit margin, in every published sample, Gallup late last year placed Obama’s approval rating with millenials below 50 percent, only marginally greater than his overall totals. Given that a third of the age group is composed of Hispanics and blacks who are dramatically more supportive of Obama, it follows that his approval with white millenials is no better than the low forties. Not a disaster, but not a precursor of a realignment that will shape inclinations for a generation.
This refers to the opposite ways in which the concept of competition is employed in economics and in more colloquial language, including the language of business itself. It is best explained by Milton Friedman, in his conservative classic Capitalism
