With Pres. Obama scheduled to campaign this evening in Boulder, Colo., The Colorado Daily headlines a report, “Obama supporters slower to snatch up tickets to president’s 3rd CU-Boulder visit.”
That raises a larger question: Is the thrill gone for 18 to 24 year-old voters who, back in 2008, turned out in large numbers to vote for Barack Obama? That was the subject of a recent Los Angeles Times story, datelined Boulder, and headlined, “Obama looks to young voters, many of whom seem uninspired.”
As we’ve already profiled, the Obama campaign and its coalition allies are desperately seeking the support of women in Colorado and other key swing states, particularly those aged 18-24. The theory goes that these young women may be more likely to prioritize abortion rights and government-mandated free access to contraceptives than jobs, the economy, national security or the ballooning national debt.
That’s not going to win Lindsey’s vote.
“I don’t appreciate Obama’s war on women and I feel Mitt [Romney] knows what women need and how to bring the country forward and include us,” she said in an interview Saturday.
Lindsey, 23, said she is a registered Republican living in conservative-leaning Elbert County, Colo. So it may not be much of a surprise to hear her support for Romney-Ryan in this presidential election. That said, as a matter of first impression, Lindsey does not seem to fit the demographic stereotype of a young woman aligned with the Republican ticket.
She is a native of California – a blue state – who moved to Colorado recently. She’s single, a licensed esthetician, and a full-time student at a Denver cosmetology school – not quite your card-carrying College Republican.
I met her and her mother after the Oct. 27 Battleground State Talkers Tour, sponsored by Salem Media and others, at the Wings over the Rockies Museum in Denver.
When I asked her main concern, as a woman, here’s what she said…
“Just the security of my nation. I really wouldn’t say for me as a woman; I’m more worried about us as a whole moving together. And, I’m just sick of the class warfare that Obama is trying to create. I think we need to unite again and move forward.”
She also mentioned that the federal budget “deficit is one of the biggest threats to our national security.”
If Lindsey’s views are reflective of what other Colorado women in her age group are thinking, then Team Obama has more to worry about than filling up a venue with students in Boulder.
Meanwhile, the Romney campaign is making its own pitch.
“Romney is hardly ceding the youth vote…,” reported The Los Angeles Times. “He promises more job opportunities for young people and routinely cites the swelling national debt and the burden it will impose on the millennial generation, as well as their children.”
