Who Could Sway the Vote?

The young voters. Senator Obama has done some new techniques that are really targeting the younger generation. Text messages, video games, and parties on campus are all things that the young voters enjoy. "In many ways, our fate is in their hands," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said. How true is that though? There was a poll conducted that showed the voters between the ages of 18-29 favored Senator Obama 56% to 29%. Now that is a huge difference. The problem is that only 54% of the new nine million voters said they are definitely going to vote on Election Day.

The big difference between the two campaigns is how they are targeting the college campuses. Obama has paid youth coordinators in 14 of the swing states that coordinate tens of thousands of volunteers. These volunteers plan to hit the dorms, bars, tech. schools, beauty salons, and factory floors. McCain is relying largely on volunteers that will target mainly football games, fraternity houses, and events honoring veterans. McCain is also relying on the program ran by NRC that provides free rides to college students to the polls.

Even though Obama is putting forth all this effort in hopes of early voting or even voting on Election Day, there is no guarantee that the young voters will vote anyways. "Since 1968 there has been a long line of unsuccessful candidates who had staked their stuff on the youth vote," says Republican strategist Alex Vogel. "It's not exactly a reliable turnout." To me, this sounds very negative and not promising at all for Obama. All Obama can do is hope that all his work and effort pays off on Election Day.

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