Losing Voters in Gap Between Generations

The current political campaign is an exercise run by the middle-aged for the middle-aged, and for the elderly.

Unlike consumer ads, which are designed for the young, the television commercials are designed to touch the hot buttons of those most likely to vote, the 40-plus set. The topics are welfare reform, the tax cut, the balanced budget, the simplistic solutions to the complex drug scourge.

The self-proclaimed geniuses who produce these things are long past their youth. The most out of touch undoubtedly is the intellectual and artistic architect of President Clinton’s campaign, Dick Morris, who fit every young person’s description of an old fool, especially after the tabloid Star reported him cavorting with a hooker.

Those under 30 see problems differently than the Morris generation, according to MTV’s Choose or Lose Poll, part of the network’s efforts to increase the youth vote, which was below 50% four years ago, and half that in 1994.

Crime is at the top of the list. But the subject includes violence and other varieties of crime, extending far beyond the 1996 campaign fixation on drugs. Other top issues include making higher education more affordable, strengthening the economy, creating a more affordable health care system and preserving Social Security for future generations.

There’s a reason these issues have escaped the 1996 political dialogue. Campaign consultants know that older Americans vote in higher numbers than the young.

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Candidates in tight races, however, aren’t ignoring the youth vote.

That’s clear in an election I’ve been following, Democratic Rep. Jane Harman against Republican Susan Brooks in the 36th Congressional District, which includes the youth-heavy South Coast beach cities, as well as the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Torrance.

Every vote counts in this district, where Harman beat Brooks by slightly more than 800 votes two years ago. Of the district’s 329,394 voters, 49,930 are under 30 years of age, according to Jim Hayes, who heads the firm of Political Data. Most are approximately evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, although about 14,000 are independent or belong to smaller parties.

The race is tight again this year. Harman is leading, district political observers said, but Brooks’ hopes are buoyed by polls that show Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole is doing better here than statewide. “This gives Susan Brooks a glimmer of a chance,” said Republican political consultant Alan Hoffenblum, who is working for another candidate.

As a result, both candidates are working hard.

Last week, I accompanied Harman to Santa Monica College, where, along with her son, Brian Frank, 22, she spoke to a dozen or so students.

She encountered an interested, occasionally enthusiastic and skeptical audience. Student Josh Young asked her why the nation was spending so much on the military, the CIA and the FBI. What’s the need, he asked, to oppose Saddam Hussein, “whom we created.” She replied that she favored reducing defense spending by privatizing some Defense Department work but this “is a dangerous world.” Afterward, Young told me it was “a typical political answer. It really didn’t answer my question.”

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Such skepticism is typical of this generation of 18- to 30-year-olds, said Mark Strama, program director for Rock the Vote, a Santa Monica-based, nonpartisan, nationwide campaign to increase registration and voting among the young. “To really penetrate this audience, you must tell what will be different about their lives as a result of [the election].

“A theme won’t do it, not to a generation that has been marketed since birth.”

Rock the Vote’s campaign uses public service commercials on radio and MTV, featuring such stars as rappers LL Cool J and Chuck D and Josie Bissett of “Melrose Place” urging viewers and listeners to register by mail and vote.

Rock the Vote and MTV may get them to the polls.

But to earn their votes, candidates will need more than a message designed for the parents of Generation X.