Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 'Baby Busters' found Clinton's beat far better Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 17:01:12 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE \HD 'Baby Busters' found Clinton's beat far better \BY Anne Gowen \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Imagine this year's presidential campaign as a rock video. Think of the heartbeat strains of U2, something from "Achtung Baby," maybe. Flash! Frame 1 shows MTV's Tabitha Soren, a 24-year-old bobbed-hairdo with a microphone, standing on the back of a campaign train being rude to the president of the United States. Flash! Alysia Faulkner, 22, is standing on the floor of the Republican convention as speeches go on before her. "I just remember [Ronald Reagan]," she says. "His tone of voice. 'My fellow Americans' - that was so reassuring." Flash! Bill Clinton plays his sax on Arsenio Hall: Blow Bill, blow. Blow on. Flash! President Bush, in his concession speech, has a message for the young people of America: "Do not be deterred, kept away from public service by the smoke and fire of a campaign year or the ugliness of politics." In the end, of course, younger voters had a message for him, moving away from the GOP for the first time in a decade. According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup exit poll, 44 percent of voters age 18 to 29 chose Mr. Clinton, to Mr. Bush's 33 percent and Ross Perot's 23. "They were definitely pro-Clinton," says Curtis Gans of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. But, he hastened to add, "What I'm more convinced about is that everybody was against Bush." Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos called it a "record youth turnout." In an extraordinary year for all the American electorate, for the so-called "Baby Busters," the voters under 30, this year was different. It marked the first time they were so openly courted by at least one side of the political spectrum. Hence the Clinton-Gore campaign's constant emphasis on rock songs at their rallies, Mr. Clinton's face appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone and both Mr. Clinton and running mate Albert Gore turning up on MTV. Such wooing may have spurred quick rethinking of Mr. Bush's position ("You've got to draw the line somewhere. And I am not going to be out there kind of being a teeny-bopper at 68. I just can't do it") and brought on the last-minute chat with Miss Soren, who, as star of MTV's "Choose or Lose" segments, became one of this year's most unlikely media celebrities. Baby Busters may have been encouraged by the efforts of such organizations as the 35 million-viewer-strong MTV that covered the presidential campaign this year for the first time. And there was the purportedly nonpartisan grass-roots group Rock the Vote that has registered 250,000 new voters so far by setting up voter registration booths as concerts, such as Guns N' Roses, and at Taco Bell restaurants, and producing public service announcements with hip-hop artists and other musicians. Just as with the rest of the electorate, the economy was a primary concern for the younger voter, as evidenced by 22-year-old waitress Hallie Karotkin, standing outside a polling booth Tuesday. She seemed to have both her generation's sense of realism and anti-Bush sentiment. She has career plans and a college degree in psychology from Union College in New York. It was her first time voting, and she had wavered between Mr. Perot and Mr. Clinton, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Perot. "If we voted tomorrow, I'd probably pick the other guy," she said ruefully, adding that many of her friends were unhappy about their choices this year, too. "A lot of people are saying it's like choosing which side of the face you want to be slapped on," she said. But nonetheless, these young voters - a group that has voted Republican in the last decade - chose Mr. Clinton. However, it was not so surprising in an election where the Arkansas governor appealed to all voter sub-groups, or, as ABC's Cokie Roberts put it yesterday, "He got everybody." By contrast, in 1988, 52 percent of the under-30 voters supported Mr. Bush, while 48 percent backed Democrat Michael Dukakis. Four years earlier, they backed Ronald Reagan over Democrat Walter Mondale by a margin of 58 to 42. In the end, the differences between the two tickets were obvious - Mr. Bush spent his last campaign rally Monday surrounded by country music singers and such aged stars as Bob Hope and Charlton Heston. But Mr. Clinton was introduced by singer and ardent environmentalist Don Henley in his final campaign stop Tuesday morning, and was serenaded with the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun." ( Later it was John Lennon's "Power to the People." The ultrahip might snidely suggest that Mr. Henley is hardly cutting-edge (a singer the under-30s might be more familiar with, Mojo Nixon, once advised removing Mr. Henley from the planet altogether) and that the cute young Boomer ticket is culturally mired in the '60s and '70s - i.e. choosing Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)" as a campaign theme. But really, consider the alternative. No matter how conservative you are, who really wanted to hear Lee Greenwood sing "God Bless the U.S.A." one more time? This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM