Everyone is talking about the enthusiasm gap in politics today. Conventional wisdom says Republicans will swarm the voting booth and leave Democrat voters choking on their dust.
We will find out Nov. 2, but perhaps the biggest thing hurting Democrats this fall is the enthusiasm gap on college campuses. The gap is not necessarily between two parties but between two years, 2008 and 2010.
In 2008, there was more blue on Ohio State’s campus than I thought was legally permitted. The Oval was packed every day with individuals carrying clipboards begging students to register to vote. Sidewalks were covered in 3 inches of chalk, and bulletin boards for miles were littered with “Hope-Change-Yes We Can” jargon.
Things are a little different now. Someone can stroll across the Oval without being inundated with anything related to the election. Campus is almost completely free of political nuisances.
Some people are saying the drop-off in enthusiasm is because this is a midterm election. And for the most part, they would be right. When college students hear the word “midterm,” they run away in terror. But the vibe generated two years ago made me believe that most students on campus would devote their entire lives to Obama’s mission.
But that appears not to be the case. His visit to campus last week caused quite a stir, but it was not overwhelmingly significant. Any president would have drawn a huge crowd. The fact that a Democrat attracted 35,000 people to a free event on a liberal campus is not a shocker, nor is it a backbreaker for the GOP.
That crowd mostly was a result of people falling in love with a man. It was not based on affection toward a cause. Otherwise, people wouldn’t have groaned when Gov. Ted Strickland was introduced. The attendees were there because they enjoy hearing tired, worn-out, car-in-ditch metaphors.
In fact, the candidates accompanying Obama would have done themselves a favor had they limited their speeches to a couple short sentences. They should have said: “Vote Democrat. If not for me, then for Obama.”
If that crowd was any reflection of 2008, those words would have caused a whole slew of young, impressionable leftists to tighten their bright blue capes and teleport to the nearest voting booth. Instead, Mary Jo Kilroy, Lee Fisher and Strickland brought angst and annoyance to the otherwise excitable crowd.
But even Obama realizes that he can no longer rely solely on himself to turn out large numbers. In 2008, one of Obama’s cigarette butts would have attracted 35,000 admirers. This year, he needed the help of wife Michelle and non-wife John Legend.
The biggest success of the president’s visit probably was to remind people that there is an election looming. In the end, I think his effort will fall short. The overwhelming majority there that was going to vote would vote “D” regardless. But I do not think he really inspired many nonvoters suddenly to fill out a ballot.
Why should they? They can’t vote for Obama again until 2012.
