We have tracked young voters since 2001. In fact, CIRCLE is the only organization that provides estimates of youth turnout immediately after elections. The exit polls reveal what percentage of voters were young, but we calculate what percentage of young people voted.

We do not do this because we think that youth voting is intrinsically valuable or profoundly interesting, but because we believe that it is good for democracy–and for young people–if we can connect them to political and social institutions while they are young. Drawing attention to them as voters may encourage the press and politicians to pay attention to them, to listen to their views, and to address their issues. In turn, that attention may stimulate youth engagement with public institutions.

Thus it was very exciting when all the nation’s major newspapers suddenly had prominent–often lead–articles on youth voting right after the Iowa caususes. Indeed, the statistics were startling: 65,000 young Iowans had caucused, at least three times as many as in any recent year. But in 2004, we also saw a very substantial increase in youth turnout in the general election (up 12 points compared to 2000). Yet youth turnout was widely described as disappointing that year. Yesterday in New Hampshire, the youth turnout increase was amazing, with 84,000 under-30s going to the polls. Yet I haven’t yet seen too much discussion of that increase in the media.

The reason is clear. In Iowa, young people turned out strong and backed the winner. In 2004, they turned out strong but voted for Kerry, who lost. In New Hampshire yesterday, they practically doubled their turnout but voted for Obama, who lost. (Actually, the under-25s chose Obama but the 25-29s went for Clinton). Most reporters are interested in who wins. They therefore presume the following argument: Youth voted for X; X lost; ergo, youth turnout was disappointing.

At one level, I understand this. Who wins the presidency is a momentous question. But it is not the only question to ask about an election. The enormous expansion of the electorate in Iowa and New Hampshire has been a beautiful thing to watch, quite apart from who won. Besides, the horse-race frame can actually cause factual errors, as when the AP reported in 2004 that youth turnout had declined. At this point, I’m just a little concerned that youth will again be described as fickle or irrelevant, because the candidate who “needs” their vote (see Ben Adler in the Politico) happened to place second in New Hampshire.

PS I just stumbled on Ezra Klein’s very thoughtful reflections on covering the horse race and what that can do to one’s sense of reality.

(Near Portsmouth, NH) I have a mini-essay over at the Hope Street Group blog. The Hope Street Group promotes broader and fairer participation in the market economy. I share many of its underlying principles and objectives. There is, however, a potential tension between democratic or civic engagement and the Hope Street Group’s strategy. That tension involves the role of managerial expertise. Many HSG members are entrepreneurs and business executives who believe that poor management of the public sector frustrates economic opportunity. For example, some of our public school systems are adequately funded but have been managed very wastefully; and the victims are our poorest children. Importing managerial reforms from the private sector could help. Sometimes, it is very “civically engaged” Americans who stand in the way of these reforms: union leaders; school board members and their most active constituents; single-issue pressure groups; and communities that organize (for example) to preserve their own neighborhood’s schools even when enrollments have shrunk.

In my mini-essay, I alert the business folks who make up Hope Street Group that not only the market sector is innovative; there’s also innovation in civil society. Engaging citizens no longer means public meetings or local elections that are dominated by interest groups. We now have a much better repertoire of techniques and styles of engagement. And we need high-quality citizen participation to improve our institutions.

I’m traveling from Syracuse, NY to Portsmouth, NH today, by various conveyances. I’m not going to the Granite State to announce my late entrance into the presidential campaign, nor to campaign for anyone else–nor to count young voters for CIRCLE. I’m just going to attend a long-scheduled meeting. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if I bump into some political or media celebs on my way there or back to DC on Tuesday evening.

I’ve already had one brush with fame. When I was in an airport recently, I heard the following announcement: “Will Boston passenger John McCain please board immediately at gate A16. Last call for Boston passenger John McCain.” I thought: there are lots of people called John McCain. But sure enough, along came the Arizona senator, hustling, grinning, and looking a little sheepish, all by himself and carrying nothing but his briefcase.

The sober analysis by CIRCLE is here. Youth turnout rose from 3 percent of eligible young participants in 2000 to four percent in 2004, and then to eleven percent last night. [Update: we’re now saying, based on the last counts, that youth turnout rose to 13 percent: more than a three-fold increase.] The more dramatic version is what Mark Ambinder writes on The Atlantic.com: “REVOLUTION FOR CHANGE BEGINS? ON STRENGTH OF NEW CAUCUS GOERS, YOUNG VOTERS AND INDEPENDENTS…..OBAMA WINS DEMOCRATIC CAUCUSES……..”

This year should be interesting for those of us in the youth civic engagement business.

On what grounds can a principled conservative oppose immigration?

One strain of modern conservatism is explicitly Christian and fundamentalist, in the specific sense that it uses the Bible as its “foundation.” The New Testament seems a poor foundation for restrictions on immigration. The apostles are given the gift of tongues so that they may emigrate and convert everyone, everywhere. They show no respect for borders. “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34-35).

Another strain is libertarian. Libertarians criticize the state for its use of force to restrain individual choice. They do not regard any state as intrinsically legitimate, but only as a tool for preserving liberty. Nothing could be more forceful than stationing agents with guns on a border to prevent individuals from moving freely across it. Immigration restrictions should be anathema to libertarians.

A third strain is free-market utilitarianism. The idea is that unrestricted markets are best for the most people–they are maximally efficient. That assumption should apply to labor markets as well as capital markets, and should therefore support free flow of people across borders. Possibly, it’s good for the median US citizen to restrict the in-flow of poor people. But if we take utilitarianism seriously, it requires the most good for the most human beings–anywhere. If we are free-market utilitarians, we should favor free immigration.

A fourth strain is Burkean–skeptical about any radical changes, especially if they are engineered by law or regulation. On Burkean grounds, opening the US to massive immigration may have been a mistake in the 1960s, but reversing that policy would be equally foolish today.

A fifth strain is communitarian/traditionalist. The most attractive version of that philosophy says: Our community may not be better than anyone else’s, but it gives our lives meaning and shapes our identities. We have the right to preserve its traditional outlines and to guide its growth. One might add that the traditional culture of some parts of America is English-speaking, Protestant, and of European origin (or of European and African origins). But that’s no argument against immigration to New York City or LA, where the local traditions revolve around diversity and migration. Nor is it obvious that the real driver of cultural change in rural America is migration across national borders. Old ways would hardly be preserved if the newcomers were sent away.

Some conservatives have already decided that a few specific issues, such as abortion, have transcendent significance. It’s not clear why they should also be opposed to immigration. In fact, new immigrants are less likely to favor abortion rights than native-born Americans are. Immigration may be a path to conservative social policy.

Finally, there’s the idea of “rule of law.” Actually, that’s a complex idea with several components, but one element surely is the principle that a clear, written law must be obeyed and enforced. As some of the anti-immigrant activists ask, “What is it about ‘illegal’ that you don’t understand?” I too am concerned whenever formal laws are massively disobeyed. This probably causes some loss of legitimate order and security; it also gives agents of the state too much discretion about when to enforce. But I’m not sure that rule of law is a specifically conservative principle. It is in tension with all the elements of modern conservatism listed above–and with many principles of modern progressive thought. I’d prefer to see it as a separate idea that has considerable merit when balanced against other values. (Of course, one way to respect the rule of law is to relax immigration regulations so that they are no longer widely disregarded by migrants and by American industry.)

I conclude that principled conservatives should not adopt an anti-immigrant posture. It’s therefore disappointing the Republican presidential candidates should be united only by their opposition to immigration.