Disclosure: I support Obama

A mere week after launching Students for Hillary and touting its support among young people, top advisers to Hillary Clinton were busy in the spin room Saturday night disparaging them, claiming that Obama's supporters were young and unlikely to caucus.

Good strategy:  A week after finally setting up your campaign's organization to attract young people, tell them they won't vote anyway so their presence is irrelevant.

You can either dispute the idea that Obama has broad support among young people, or you can reinforce and disparage it, but either way you might want to make up your mind first before opening your mouth:

At least two of Hillary Clinton’s upper-echelon advisers, Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn, were decidedly unimpressed.

“Our people look like caucus-goers,” Grunwald said, “and his people look like they are 18. Penn said they look like Facebook.”

Penn added, “Only a few of their people look like they could vote in any state.”

I have to say that I find these comments shocking, and I would expect better of any campaign that hoped to end up with our party's nomination.

First of all, people who are 18 ARE caucus-goers and, yes, young people do vote.

In 2004, young voters made up somewhere around 1/5 of the primary electorate in the early states. In Iowa, youth turnout in the caucuses quadrupled (pdf) in 2004, and 18-29 year olds constituted a larger share of the electorate [17%] than 30-44 year olds.  

In New Hampshire, young voters also increased their primary turnout (at pace with the rest of the electorate).  In three of the first primary states, youth participation in the general election increased substantially in 2004 and in 2006.

Second, let me get this straight, young voters turning out to commute to Des Moines to attend a five-hour long party convention on a Saturday night is evidence that these young people will not turn out to caucus?  You want to run that by me again?

Third, let's leave aside that the Clinton campaign is basically on the record planning on a low youth turnout, which obviously leads one to doubt the sincerity or optimism of their efforts to do otherwise ––– a serious mistake, especially for a general election nominee.

Mark Penn's "They look like Facebook" deserves to be one of the more ridiculed strategic assertions of this campaign. Not the way a party sets about winning the youth vote, and not inspiring rhetoric for those hoping campaigns will realize the power of online social networking.

Lastly, Penn's hyperbolic claim that "only a few" were of legal age to vote runs up against the observations of journalists at the event, who noted a younger but certainly diverse crowd, as well as photos of the crowd.

Cross-posted on One Million Strong