Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle reports on a recent Democracy Corps poll:

Young Americans have become so profoundly alienated from Republican ideals on issues including the war in Iraq, global warming, same-sex marriage and illegal immigration that their defections suggest a political setback that could haunt Republicans "for many generations to come," the poll said.

The startling collapse of GOP support among young voters is reflected in the poll's findings that show two-thirds of young voters surveyed believe Democrats do a better job than Republicans of representing their views - even on issues Republicans once owned, such as terrorism and taxes.

And among GOP presidential candidates, only former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani registers with more positive views than negative with young voters, the poll shows.

First, this is another data point to bolster Rudy's "electability" argument among Republicans and it does, I think, give a sense of the broadness of his appeal.

The larger point, however, is about the youth vote itself and how much it will matter. According to exit polls, in 2000 18-29 year olds represented 18% of all voters, and they went for Gore over Bush by two points, 48-46.

In 2004, despite a ton of media hoopla surrounding Democrats and the youth vote, 18-29 year olds represented just 17% of the electorate.

In a column right after the '04 election, Jonah Goldberg called the youth vote "a mirage:"

Remember how we were all told that the new army of young "Deaniacs" was going to carry Howard Dean to the White House because of the unprecedented enthusiasm, idealism, and youthful vigah (as John Kennedy would say)? Well, that fizzled like a North Korean light bulb. The same was true for John Kerry.

And when the youth didn't show up, countless pundits echoed the words of pro-Kerry journalist Andrew Sullivan: "We were all suckered."

No we "all" weren't. Only those who wanted to be were. And they fall for it every time.

I would quibble a bit with Jonah's assertion that the youth vote didn't "show up." In fact, turnout was up among 18-29 years olds by 9.3% in 2004 and they did vote for Kerry over Bush by a larger margin than in '00 (54-45). The difference, however, is that turnout was up across the board, and every other demo went for Bush, making the Democrats' gains among 18-29 year olds negligible in terms of the final outcome.

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