Candidates take note as young Americans re-embrace politics
America’s youth are undergoing a political rebirth, and politicians have noticed.
People under 30 are flocking to the polls and leaving their mark on the 2008 White House race. Long moribund activist groups are being revived. Nickelodeon, a television station geared to teens, is holding mock primaries.
“We’ve been hearing for years, ‘Where is the youth movement?’ Well, it’s been growing slowly and now it’s here,” said Samantha Miller, 22, who helped to revive Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a left-wing group that has lain dormant since the late 1960s. [complete article]
White Americans ready to elect black president, poll shows
Barack Obama’s prospects of beating Hillary Clinton to the Democratic presidential nomination received a boost yesterday after 72% of white Americans told a CNN poll they believed the US was ready to have a black president.
The poll will make glum reading for Obama’s rival for the nomination, Hillary Clinton, however: fewer than two-thirds of respondents thought the country was ready for a female commander-in-chief.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll, which was published on Martin Luther King day, found notably fewer black Americans (61%) than white believed the US was ready for a leader who shared their skin colour. [complete article]
