The kids are all right

Wolfwalker left a pretty interesting comment to my last post, on the Liberal Crackup:

With all due respect, are you sure this isn't wishful thinking? Polls show that 40 percent of voters still support Barry Lackwit, and almost as many still support LackwitCare. I don't know how many belong to the "don't cut MY stuff, cut somewhere else" faction, but I'm guessing at least another 10-15%. Combine the two, and you get a majority that will oppose the changes that need to be made in order to actually undo the fascists' program. And the gods only know what will happen if those changes are made and don't yield instant improvement.

Consider also that a large chunk of the electorate consists of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, many (perhaps most) of whom grew up under leftist control, conditioned to believe that government is always the solution. Will they support the wholesale changes that are needed to avoid collapse? Or will they succumb to the liberal siren song "mend it, don't end it"?

It's not just him who thinks this, either. It's a serious question - Greece is looking at street riots as they try to do precisely what Wolfwalker describes, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

Here's why I think that the left's support in general and Obama's support in particular is very, very weak. It boils down to marketing. Obama won the 2008 election against a terrible opposition candidate, by a modest margin. He did so based on an appeal to change the way business is done in Washington - essentially, he garnered a lot of votes from people who hate politicians, by painting himself as the anti-politician.

Now, they see that he's precisely like all the other politicians. And that sort of brand damage is weakening him at exactly the moment that his program is energizing his opposition.

Pew Research:

Support among youth for the Democratic Party has dwindled to 54 percent as of December, compared with 62 percent identifying as Democrats in 2008, according to the Pew Research Center study released Wednesday.

Youth identifying as Republicans increased from 30 percent to 40 percent in the same time period.

"This is a generation of young adults who made a big splash politically in 2008," Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and co-author of the report, told the Associated Press. "But a year and a half later, they show signs of disillusionment with the president – and, perhaps, with politics itself."

48 percent of respondents said Obama had failed to bring change to D.C.

Harvard Institute of Politics:

Harvard's Institute of Politics released the latest results from its ongoing survey of young adults this morning, and they don't look good for Democrats. As in the rest of the population, President Obama remains personally popular (56 percent approval), but support for his individual initiatives, like health-care reform, is much weaker. Only 38 percent of young people (defined as 18- to 29-year-olds) approve of the president's handling of the deficit, and a majority disapprove of his economic management (51 percent) and his work on health care (53 percent). Young people are unimpressed with congressional Democrats, with only 42 percent approving of their performance. That's still higher than for congressional Republicans—who have a mere 35 percent approval rating—but Democratic approval is down 6 points since last November, which is a worrying trend going into the midterms.

The worst sign for Democrats is voter enthusiasm. Young voters are a critical demographic for both the president and Democrats in Congress. They were the key to Obama's success last cycle, both in the primaries and the general election. Young voters arguably pushed him over the top in Indiana and North Carolina—two significant states in his victory over John McCain—and, going all the way back to January 2008, they handed him his very first victory, in the Iowa caucuses. This year only 35 percent of young Democratic voters say they'll turn out in November. Young Republicans, on the other hand, are significantly more enthusiastic, with 41 percent saying they definitely plan to vote. Among those who voted for John McCain in 2008, 53 percent told Harvard they were certain to vote this year, while only 44 percent of Obama voters plan to cast ballots. And those who disapprove of Obama's job performance are more likely to vote than those who approve.

Young people may be (are?) more idealistic than us crusty old cynics, but they're also much less forgiving to politicians they think lie to them. Is Obama in that category? I'm not sure anyone's asking this in polling questions, but the numbers are pretty clear - young people simply don't see Obama the same way they saw him in 2008. Probably they can't - nobody can survive that kind of inflated expectations.

But that just means that his support is waning just when his opposition's is waxing. This doesn't mean that he's through by any means, as Wolfwalker accurately points out. What it means is that if Obama is to recover, he will need to re-invent himself to appeal to the center, just like Bill Clinton did in 1995. That would mean, of course, the complete jettisoning of his old "Hope and Change" messaging, which will hurt him even more with young voters and the left core of the Democratic Party.

The country has been split roughly in thirds for years: Democrats, Independents, and Republicans (it's actually more like 30%/45%/25%). It's simply not possible to build a governing coalition by running to either the right or (as Obama has tried to do) the left. There aren't enough votes there. He can get enough residual support from his core to get to 40%, but that just won't be enough to govern. Add in the enthusiasm angle (his support is increasingly "soft", and his opposition is increasingly "hard"), and it's a bad moon rising for him, even with all the indoctrination.

This is all speculative, but if November is a disaster in large part because the youth vote simply doesn't turn out, we can expect to hear leftists advocating laws requiring everyone to vote.