Youth abandoning Obama

Young voters who had been enthralled by Barack Obama's "Yes, we can" message are now saying "Maybe not" - and are backing away from the president in a worrisome new poll for the White House.

Obama is losing in a match-up against a generic Republican challenger by 37 percent to 34 percent among voters in the 18-34 age group, according to a stunning Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday.

In March, voters in this group approved of Obama by 54 percent to 37 percent.

"The youngest age group may be the most impatient and the most easily disillusioned among all age groups," said Molly Andolina, a youth-vote expert and DePaul University political-science professor.

Certainly, realization that they are going to be stuck with a monumental tab has something to do with the young losing interest in Obama. But the real problem?

Basically "The Peggy Effect" is this: Everybody who voted for Obama because of all the free stuff they'd be getting, such as the famed "Peggy the Moocher" (who was Obama's freeloading answer to "Joe the Plumber"), have been running to their mailboxes for a year and a half now, and... pretty much nothing. No free mortgage; no free car; no free gas - hell, no free health care yet for that matter. It's taking a toll on Obama's approval ratings.

It's a question of not meeting expectations. I don't necessarily buy the idea that these young people expected a free lunch. But clearly, they expected "unicorns and rainbows" as well as a kind of soft totalitarianism where no one would oppose what Obama was doing and that everyone would agree on what needed to be done.

Being titanically unsophisticated and lacking the critical thinking skills to evaluate the impossibility of what Obama was offering, they fell for the golden throated oratory and failed to look at the man behind the pretty words. Naive, stupid about politics (18 million of them had never voted before), ignorant of history, and consumed with wishful thinking, the Obamabots have finally had their minds opened to the extraordinary cynicism of this president and how he manipulated their emotions to turn them out in droves during the primaries and general election.

This generation will be another "Lost Generation" as far as politics because of it. Their own cynicism about politics will be confirmed and they will be turned off to future candidates. Idealism is a fine thing. But when it is captured by a manipulative politician and used to further nefarious political ends, it only ends up making the young even less interested in the political process.

That may be Obama's most lasting - and damaging - legacy.