President Barack Obama reflects during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, Sept. 28, 2009. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)
WASHINGTON – Maybe it’s because he called Kanye West a “jackass.”
Or maybe it’s because his presidential news conferences aren’t as high-energy as his campaign rallies.
Though the under-30 set voted for Barack Obama overwhelmingly last November, a group of political experts has noted that those same young people – once so enamored of their fist-bumping, hoops-shooting presidential candidate – seem less enthusiastic now that he’s is actually in office.
Blame it on youthful impatience and an administration that’s still learning how to govern from Washington, said a panel of journalists and political operatives speaking at American University Tuesday night.
“Everybody who supported him, regardless of age, has to come to terms with this relationship to – not to Obama the candidate, but to Obama the president,” said David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine and a columnist for AOL’s PoliticsDaily Web site, for which this story was written.
But American University graduate student, Elizabeth Hopkins disputed the notion of an Obama personality cult.
“I am concerned about the issues,” said the 32-year-old Hopkins. “For me, it’s not about the personality. It’s not about Obama. It’s about the issues.”
Keeping young voters like Hopkins happy could prove difficult, Corn said, because the Obama administration is taking a more “conventional” tack on issues like gay rights and the war in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Republican strategist David Winston said the White House is simply experiencing the growing pains of all new administrations.
“The Obama administration came in with 18- to 29-year-olds having this massive expectation, and what they’ve run into – as most administrations do when they come to a city like this – is that it’s really hard to get stuff done,” Winston said.
But as the White House struggles to learn the back roads of Washington lawmaking, it may risk losing the very young people who were so invigorated by Obama’s presidential campaign, said Jose Antonio Vargas, technology and innovations editor for The Huffington Post. Two-thirds of young voters supported Obama, according to the Pew Research Center.
“It’s fascinating that you saw a campaign [that] wrote the playbook as to how you campaign in the social networking era, and they got to the White House and it seems as if that whole thing has just – not evaporated, but it’s definitely been on the back burner,” Vargas said.
But David Gregory, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said young people shouldn’t wait for an invitation to become part of the policy debate.
“To take part in an historic election is one thing,” Gregory said. “To be drawn to the kind of leader that young people were drawn to in Barack Obama has to sustain itself, and it’s got to be built around organization on particular issues.”