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Wow I know i'm a bit late, but I just wanted to comment about Obama's speech before the republicans have their talk. Obama through it down. He tore down Bush and McCain and spoke on how he plans to make this country better. I also liked that this time they had a lot of ordinary people speaking. I just wish they could've had a college or high school student speak up there as well. Sometimes I feel that politics pay minor attention to this group.
It's because the 18-21 group generally doesn't vote. No surprise.
I'm 18 and I'm going to vote.
Come back to me eight years ago and tell me that you're going to vote. You can still be 18. But chances are you weren't going to vote.
If you want a more involved answer (note that my previous answer was serious, and makes a generalization, stemming from the keyword "generally"), then you can have it. The 18-21 demographic is more or less snubbed by political sources due to the general feeling of indifference in people that age. This comes from a myriad of reasons, including emo, different priorities, rebelliousness (a wrongfully directed indignation, but whatever), a lack of perceived time, not caring, and general apathy for the workings of the Federal Government.
This election looks to be quite different, in which the youngest portion of the vote-capable demographic gives enough of a damn. Do be fairly informed that this is not the norm, and I'll expect people our ages to not care in four or eight years. The nigh intolerable workings of the current administration, combined with technological advances that make world awareness 100% easier, and stacked with the ever-rising cynicism of the Federal Government is the largest group of reasons for this election to consider people 18-21. If you look up the numbers ever since the age was lowered to 18, there is a very, very noticeable difference.
One person out of several million stating that "they'll vote," is not enough to shift the general consensus and numbers of politics. Just because you can die for your country doesn't always mean that you will; just because they let you vote at 18 doesn't necessarily mean that you will.
eight years ago if I was eighteen then, yeah I would have still voted, because the reason being is because I would have still had lived in a world where I was dissatisified with how things are going. I had a terrible relationship with school and what happened to me would have probably had happened in any time period. My mother's situation and my situation with classmates and teachers. Even at 10 I clearly remembered the campaign because the year 2000 is when I found purpose in life. I vowed to become an artist with the power to assuage the troubles of disadvantaged people in the world with my work and also with charity.
Most of these young people my age I have to say would want to take advantage of the power they possess.
If you had bothered to check the numbers for that age group from four and eight years ago, you would find that they actually wouldn't take advantage of that ability.
Thanks for actually reading my post and not responding in a knee-jerk answer that involves the "personal experience." If I wanted to I could tell you that all the people that I talk to also said that they would vote just to "take advantage of their abilities." This of course is untrue; the people I talk to are abstaining their votes on the basis that both candidates suck.