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Monday, January 12, 2004

Rock the Vote 

This NYTimes story, "39% See Bias In Reporting On Campaign," claims the following:
The greatest defections [from "traditional media outlets"] were among those younger than 30, nearly two-thirds of whom say they are not even somewhat interested in the Democratic presidential campaign. Only 15 percent could say which candidate served as an Army general (Wesley K. Clark) or which one was House majority leader (Richard A. Gephardt).
I would like to note this: yesterday I found myself discussing politics (in a very limited fashion) with one of my students, an 18-year-old who attends an affluent private high school in New York. The tenor/gist of his opinion seems to tilt anti-Bush/pro-Democrat, though in an exceedingly vague, uninformed way (he would admit as much, I think).

He asked me what I thought of Howard Dean's remark, the one from the interview, about how the Iowa caucuses were bad.

I told him what I thought, and asked him if he knew anything else about Dean. He freely admitted he didn't. My student absorbs the very small amount of political information he does from television--flipping through the channels, a little news. And this impressionable kid, this potential voter--the ONLY THING he knew about Howard Dean was that he was in trouble for making a comment about the Iowa caucuses.

What, I ask, is going on?

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