Barack Obama’s Lost that Youth Luvin’ Feeling … 2008 Excitement Has Turned to 2012 Obama Apathy

Barack Obama’s 2008 “Hope & Change” with America’s youth has turned to apathy in 2012.

Remember when Obama and his reelection minions were looking for a new campaign slogan for 2012? I think they might have found one. Unenthusiasm and apathy is the slogan for the American youth in 2012 when it comes to president Barack Obama. The once euphoric mood of today’s youth has subsided to apathy. Obama road to victory in 2008 on a wave of youth support in his run to the presidency, winning 66% of the 18 to 29 aged voters against John McCain. However, Barack has lost that youth “luvin’ feeling”. The foot soldier of 2008 are now the unemployed and underemployed of 2012.

“There’s definitely a significant sense that this generation are more apathetic headed into the 2012 election than they were in 2008,” John Della Volpe, director of polling for Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, said in a phone interview.

Obama’s approval rating among college students dropped to 46 percent last December from 58 percent in November 2009, according to a Harvard University poll. Fifty percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 said they would “definitely” be voting, an 11 percentage-point decrease from the fall of 2007. A third of respondents said they approved of Democrats in Congress, and 24 percent approved of Republicans. Just 12 percent said the nation was headed in the right direction.

“The turnout will not be great,” Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate in Washington, said in a phone interview. The war in Afghanistan, a lack of progress on closing Guantanamo Bay and a dismal job picture taint Obama’s prospects, he said.The unemployment rate among 18- to 24-year-olds was 16.3 percent at the end of last year, the highest since record-keeping began in 1948, according to a February Pew Research Center report.

We have stated for quite some time that there is no way that Obama could capture that same energy and crazed hysteria that vaulted him into office in 2008. It was based on emotion, not substance. It was based upon promises, not reality. It was based upon running against GWB, not the fact that Obama was ill prepared to be President. Four years later, Obama has kept few promises, has offered no fix to the economy and in fact the youth are worse off today than they were four years ago.  They have certainly Lost that Luvin’ Feeling.

But while 18-to-29 year-old Americans are reliable Democrats, their enthusiasm for Obama and presidential politics has waned, setting the stage for an uphill struggle to turn out the vote.

Forty-nine percent of millennial voters approve of Obama, according to the Pew Research Center, down 23 points from February 2009.  They are also the least interested in or engaged with the current campaign, the study found.

Only 17 percent of millennials said they are following election news closely, while just 13 percent said they’ve given a lot of thought to the candidates, a 15 point drop from the same period four years ago.

Who has been affected the most among the youth when it comes to Obama’s failed economic polices … black teens of course.