It’s a little bizarre these days, writing about the youth vote. Ever since Sen. Obama’s upset in Iowa the youth vote has dominated the news, and that is a change to be sure. I’ve been working in or writing about youth politics since 2003, and for five years it has been an uphill battle to convince people that we really are seeing a sea-change in youth participation. Fast forward less than two months, and what was once an impossibility is now a given. The genie is out of the bottle, but most people still don’t understand the significance of what is happening, and even fewer understand where it came from.

So that’s what I’d like to do with my time with you here at Table of One. Over the next five days, I’d like to talk about the history of the youth vote, why Barack Obama is just the very visible tip of the iceberg that is today’s rising youth participation, what it all means for the Democrats, and how the broader progressives movement can capitalize on this youth wave to secure a progressive future majority far into the 21st Century. This will be, in miniature, the same argument I lay out in my book, Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority.

I’d like to begin by sketching out a portrait of young voters themselves – the Millennials. Who are these young voters that are shaking up Democratic politics? Where do they come from and what do they believe?

The Millennials are the generation of Americans born between the years 1978 and 1996. The numbers vary slightly (depending on who you ask), but by the time all Millennials are of voting age, they will outnumber the Baby Boomers by at least 4 million. All told, it is estimated that there are 82 million Millennials. Millennials are also the most diverse generation in American history. Almost 40 percent of Millennials identify as a racial or ethnic minority – 18 percent Hispanic, 15 percent African American, 5 percent Asian (pdf). Growing up amidst such diversity has also lead them to become the most tolerant generation in American History. Today, eligible Millennial voters make up the entire of the 18 – 29 cohort you see in exit polling data.

As Robert Putnam noted in a column just yesterday in the Boston Globe, Millennials are a highly civic generation, responsible for the first large increases in voting, volunteering, and other forms of civic participation in decades. It is in part this civic streak that has inspired generational theorists like Robert Strauss and Neil Howe – among others – to label Millennials the next “Greatest Generation,” who will pick up after their grandparents and establish new institutions of civic participation and a new civic culture in America (it is from Strauss and Howe’s work – Millennials Rising – that I’ve lifted my blog title today).

It is through a combination of circumstance, timing, and temperament that this civic streak finds its roots. Strauss and Howe theorized that it is in part due to the natural cycling of generations, and the Millennials are rebelling against what they see as the narcissism of the Boomers and the nihilism and apathy (and conservatism) of Generation X. Where as those generations rebelled against the institutions established by the GI Generation, the Millennials are rebelling against them by filling-in the gap left by their grandparents and rebuilding or constructing new civic institutions (a topic we’ll cover later in the week).

The catalysts that sparked this rise in participation were a series of catastrophic events that unfolded during the young adulthood (and in some cases childhood) of Millennials. The first of these was 9/11. Among older Millennials, 9/11 instilled in them a sense of patriotism and desire to sacrifice for their country. Among the younger members of that generation, some of whom were only 11 years old at the time (and who are now turning 18 this year), 9/11 is the first event in their political/historical consciousness. The Iraq War stands as the second formative moment, and it drove Millennials to reject the Bush Administration’s unilateral foreign policy. The final formative moment in the Millennials political consciousness is Hurricane Katrina, which affirmed in them the belief that it is the responsibility of government to protect and provide opportunity for all its citizens.

Taken together, these events have formed the basis of an overwhelmingly progressive world-view that crosses partisan lines. Millennials are far more likely than previous generations to believe in the responsibility and power of government to do good in our lives (even if they are skeptical of individual actors within government), and they are multilateralists by nature, who recognize the need for the world community to act together to solve many of our major problems.

On the issues, majorities of Millennials are against the war in Iraq, believe in a strong government role in protecting the environment and stopping climate change, and believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide health care for its citizens. Among self-idenitified “liberal” Millennials, support for these policies tops 70 or 80 percent in multiple polls. More interestingly, support among conservative Millennials tops 50 and sometimes 60 percent. If a “post-partisan” politics is going to be ushered-in on a wave of Millennial support, it will have a distinctly progressive character.

All of this has been good news for the Democratic Party. In the last 6 years, partisan identification among young voters has swung dramatically to the left. In 2002, 37 percent of young voters self identified as Democrats vs 39 percent who identified as Republican. Today, 43 percent identify as Democrats vs. 29 percent Republican.

These trends have also brought rewards or Democrats at the ballot box. During the last two major elections (2004 and 2006), Millennials not only increased their vote, but voted for Democrats by greater and greater margins. In 2000, only 40 percent of young voters (a few Millennials, but mostly Gen Xers) turned out, and they split their votes almost evenly between Al Gore and George W. Bush. In 2004, turnout increased to 49% (and was as high as 64% in targeted swing states), and Millennials were the only age demographic to favor John Kerry, picking him over President Bush 54 – 45 percent. During the 2006 midterms, turnout among young voters increased for the first time in a midterm election in over two decades. This time they picked Democrats over Republicans 60 – 38 percent according to CNN exit polling.

The final thing I would like to note about this new generation in American politics is their sheer optimism and sense of empowerment. A recent Rock the Vote poll (the most up to date polling on young voters at the moment) showed this:

• 80 percent of respondents are paying attention to the Presidential election.
• 88 percent of respondents agree that young people have the power to change this country.
• 75 percent of respondents agree that they personally have the power to change the country.
• 78 percent of respondents agree that this year their vote will count.
• 75 percent of respondents agree that young people are making more of a difference than usual this year.

It is this optimism and belief in their own power to make positive change in country – reflected in many polls and surveys of Millennials taken in the past few years – more than anything that accounts for the incredible surge in youth participation that we are seeing today. That growth in participation is bigger than any one candidate or campaign, a fact also backed up by Rock the Vote’s poll, which found that only 8 percent of respondents stated “excitement about a particular candidate” as their reason for following the election. The trends we are seeing today are the result of an entrepreneurial civic spirit unseen in America in decades, and it is what that spirit has wrought – more than anything else – that accounts for the today’s surging youth engagement. But that’ a topic for another column.