Here's what The Weekly Standard left out about that Rock the Vote poll

Written by Eric Boehlert

Published

TWS's Mary Katharine Ham wrote a hopeful blog post this week about how younger voters are suddenly leaning to the right, or at least not leaning so far to the left, and that Republicans stand poised to pick up a youth revival. For instance, the margin by which younger voters prefer Democrats over Republicans has definitely shrunk since 2008.

Beyond that though, the poll results seem to provide thin pickings for Republicans, and certainly doesn't contain enough evidence to support TWS's headline, “Youth Vote Shifts Right,” which is why Ham is left with this kind of argument:

In a broader shift from 2008, and a foreboding one for Democrats, the federal deficit has crept into the issues most important to young people. It places third in the Rock the Vote poll--close behind concern about jobs and the economy and the cost of college--with 66 percent “very concerned” about it. In 2008, the deficit was 12th of 15 issues for young voters.

I'm not sure how cutting the federal deficit is, by a default, a conservative or Republican idea. i.e. Are Democrats running on the agenda of specifically expanding the deficit? And did the previous Republican president do anything curb the deficit? No and no.

But more importantly, lets look at the Rock The Vote polling results that Bill Kristol's TWS failed to spell out [emphasis added]:

  • 89% would be likely to support a candidate who supports increasing investment in renewable energy sources to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
  • 57% would be likely to support a candidate who voted for the passage of healthcare legislation.
  • 86% would be likely to support a candidate who wants to increase government grants to help make college and post-graduate education more affordable.
  • 77% would back a candidate who supports expanding safe-sex education in schools.
  • 70% would be likely to support a candidate who wants to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.
  • 50% would back a candidate who supports providing illegal immigrants with a path to citizenship.

Those sound like Democrats to me.