The Black Youth Project has released an important report entitled “Youth, Race, and Voter Mobilization” (PDF). Some points that caught my eye:

Being contacted about an election strongly predicts voting. Young people who are contacted are 15%-30% more likely to turn out. (This statistic is consistent with our own research. Part of the reason may be that people who are already registered or who are socioeconomically advantaged are more likely to be contacted. But randomized experiments have also found that being encouraged to vote has a positive impact on turnout.)

The Republican Party has historically been much more likely to contact young people than the Democratic Party, although the  gap favored the Republicans by only two points (within the margin of error) in 2008.

Both parties have become more likely to contact young people, and  both parties are most likely to contact African American youth. Thus African American youth were the most contacted racial/ethnic group in 2008–and had the highest turnout rate that year.

The fact that 30% of young African Americans reported being contacted by the GOP is surprising, especially because they voted overwhelmingly for the Democrats. The most widely reported examples of the GOP “contacting” Black youth were negative: robocalls designed to suppress turnout. Perhaps the Republicans deserve more credit than those stories imply, or perhaps some of the GOP contacts that young African Americans reported were negative.

I was under the impression that political activity was channeled through the Obama campaign to an extraordinary degree in 2008, to the detriment of independent grassroots political groups. In fact, 18 percent of youth were contacted about the election by non-party organizations, the same rate as in 2004 and much more than a any time in the previous two decades. Of those who were contacted by non-party organizations, young African Americans were especially likely to receive contacts from churches (21%), friends (21%), and neighborhood and community organizations (17%). The finding about friends is consistent with our research that political discussion is particularly common among working-class, urban African Americans.

The Black Youth Project draws a clear conclusion from its research. Black youth will vote if contacted. Their 2012 turnout will depend on whether the parties, campaigns, and independent groups choose to talk to them. In turn, that could affect the outcome of the election.

According to CIRCLE’s exclusive analysis, released today, Mitt Romney has caught up with Ron Paul in the total number of youth votes in the primaries and caucuses. Santorum and Gingrich lag far behind. Meanwhile, to put those trends in perspective, Barack Obama had drawn almost twice as many youth voters as Romney or Paul at this time in the 2008 cycle.

The relatively low youth turnout could be a sign that engagement is down, but I think it’s more likely that (to quote the CIRCLE release), “young people remain largely in the Democratic column today, after supporting Obama by a 68-32% margin in 2008 and then choosing Democratic House candidates over Republicans by a 57-40% margin in 2010.”

In lieu of a substantive blog post here today, I have an op-ed on the conservative Daily Caller website in which I argue that Rick Santorum has performed consistently poorly among young voters–including young Republicans–and that nominating him would risk writing off an entire generation.

National candidates typically depict their differences as epic battles about the very essence of our society. For example, Mitt Romney’s victory speech on the night of the New Hampshire Primary:

President Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” America. We want to restore America to the founding principles that made this country great.

He wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America.

This President puts his faith in government. We put our faith in the American people.

This is pretty much nonsense. The election will make a difference–it matters who wins–but it is not a battle between European socialism and a return to the Republic as it stood in 1788. Neither option is on the table. Ezra Klein has, I think, a pretty accurate summary:

It matters that Obama’s proposed tax cuts amount to $3 trillion and benefit taxpayers making less than $250,000 while Romney’s would cost more than $6 trillion and are tilted toward the top 1 percent. It matters that Obama would implement the Affordable Care Act and Romney would try to repeal it. It matters that Obama is inclined to strengthen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while Republicans want to weaken it.

But the 2012 election is not an epochal clash of irreconcilable worldviews. Judging from their respective records, Obama and Romney would have little trouble coming to agreement if locked in a room together. That’s a very different conclusion than you would draw from listening to their rhetoric, which implies a Thunderdomish battle to the death.

I would not claim that both sides exaggerate their differences to the same degree. “Movement” conservatives are especially likely to regard their debate with Democrats as fundamental and existential. This is not all pretense or rhetoric; I suspect they are genuinely disappointed when they discover that winning the House means a shift in the federal budget of just a couple of percent. Running for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney has every reason to depict himself as a scourge of anti-American socialists. Democrats, meanwhile, are more aware that liberalism is a minority position and are therefore more likely to try to position themselves as consensus candidates.

That said, you get no points on either side for depicting the partisan debate realistically. No candidate says, “We’re all for a mixed economy with a regulated capitalist market, federal provision of pensions and health care for the elderly, a vast military that projects power globally in our economic interests, huge prisons, sharply limited federal aid to poor people, and tax cuts whenever we think we can afford them. We just disagree about how much to spend on all that.”

A new study finds that “Strongly identified Republicans or Democrats perceive and exaggerate polarization more than weakly identified Republicans or Democrats or political independents.” They also vote at higher rates, presumably motivated by the sense that we face an epic battle between good and evil. Although Independents have grown in number, their turnout has fallen. Maybe some of them are turned off because they can’t believe the prevailing claim that elections are existential choices. That just doesn’t ring true.

I think we’d be better off if Americans saw through the exaggerations and recognized that politics is played within the 40 yard lines. Then they could tell when someone (such as Ron Paul) really proposes to move outside that range and could decide whether he has a realistic chance of doing so. They would also be more aware of genuinely radical ideas, from authentic socialism to authentic libertarianism–not to mention real environmentalism and real pacifism–which are conspicuous by their absence. Finally, they could make a more judicious choice among the available options. If you’re looking for Kenyan socialists or the Founding Fathers, the 2012 general election will not offer what you want (or what you fear). But we are going to spend the next few years implementing and improving Obamacare or gutting it; closing the budget gap with new taxes or not; and strengthening environmental and labor laws or trimming them. We may end up at the Republicans’ 40 or the Democrats’ 40, and it will make a difference.

(Washington, DC) Newt Gingrich released his contract with Fannie Mae just in time to argue about it with Mitt Romney. At the Florida debate, Romney said, “This contract proves you were not a historian. You were a consultant …. And you were hired by the chief lobbyist of Freddie Mac.” Gingrich replied, “Gov. Romney has done consulting work for years … I’ve never suggested his consulting work was lobbying.”

The problem is not whether Newt Gingrich “consulted.” Consulting could mean anything, including historical research. The contract is fairly remarkable for not saying what his consultancy will entail. There are no deliverables, no scope of work, no deadlines, no metrics. I don’t know how common such vagueness is on K Street, but no organization I have ever dealt with would tolerate it. I can think of only two explanations:

1. Fannie Mae and Newt Gingrich had an understanding about what he would do that they did not want to commit to paper. For instance, he was going to lobby but didn’t want to register as a federal lobbyist. Or …
2. Gingrich was not going to do anything. Fannie Mae was simply willing to pay him $300,000 to keep him happy and friendly.

If Gingrich was selling the influence he had obtained as a public official, I think that’s fundamentally unethical. At a minimum, it should be disclosed. If he was selling something of intrinsic value, such as history or strategy, then I don’t see why it would be left unmentioned in the contract.