Interest Groups

Interest Groups in 2012 Presidential Election President Barak Obama was elected in 2008. This was an historic occasion in American history, given that Obama was the first African-American ever to assume the nation's highest office. His victory was also remarkable because of the overwhelmingly 'young' demographic composition of the voters who elected him. Voting turnout has been on the decline for many years in the United States, but has been particularly low amongst young voters. But Obama's younger 'base' electorate has grown increasingly disenchanted with their prospects for the future.

"The so-called millennial generation, voters 18 to 30, still like President Obama more than any other age group. But just half say they approve of the job he is doing, down 24 points from when he took office" (Will a Generational Divide Define 2012 Election, 2011, PBS News Hour). Young people have been especially hard-hit by the recession. Older workers, because of the depletion of their retirement accounts are working longer.

Layoffs mean that more experienced workers are looking for work, and are often willing to accept lower-paying jobs than they might have in previous years. Employers are downsizing, or off-shoring entry-level jobs. Entry-level jobs that were once paid are now being converted to unpaid internships, which can only be used by young adults wealthy enough to work for free. Of equal weight in the growing disenchantment with politics amongst millennilals is their sense that the sky-high expectations they had for President Obama have not been realized.

But it is important to note that the millennial generation is not the most disenchanted of all the generations with the government: "Just 16% of seniors say they can trust the government all or most of the time, while 26% of millennials say they do" (Will a Generational Divide Define 2012 Election, 2011, PBS News Hour). Interestingly enough, seniors have been less affected by the recession than millennials in a long-term fashion, since fewer of them were deeply involved in the mortgage meltdown and a smaller percentage are looking for work.

The stock market has rebounded, on which many seniors' retirement funds are dependent. However, employment numbers have not. What is likely to be most significant for Obama's reelection campaign is voter turnout, rather than voter support, according to polls. "Millennials gave Obama his biggest margin, over 20 percentage points" (Will a Generational Divide Define 2012 Election, 2011, PBS News Hour). They may still support him, but enough to go out and vote? The older the voter, the more likely he or she will actually go to the polls.

Apathy may defeat Obama, and a sense of weariness that government cannot do anything it promises to do. Millennials may like Obama, but they may no longer believe he is worth 'fighting for,' while older voters, who overwhelmingly vote Republican, are likely to vote, even if only to cast an 'anti-Obama' ballot. "Obama's re-election campaign is rolling out a new initiative, using social media to court young potential voters on college campuses" (Will a Generational Divide Define 2012 Election, 2011, PBS News Hour). However, the Republican victory is far from assured.

Although the President and his party may be bearing a large proportion of the blame for the failing economy, the Republicans are also being criticized by voters for fostering intransigence and gridlock in Washington. Additionally, many issues divide the interests of the elderly, who are dependent upon social welfare programs like Medicare and Social Security, and the current platform of the Republican Party.

The Republican hostility to Social Security in particular (Rick Perry famously called it a 'Ponzi Scheme' before retracting the statement) complicates the idea that the support of older voters for anti-government rhetoric will automatically result in a turnover of power in the White House. What is clear is that while younger people are less socially engaged than they were in 2008, older voters are more so, and are paying more attention to politics.

Another area of division between the generations that could 'cut both ways' for both parties is race: a lower percentage of millennial voters are nonwhites than any other generation: only 59%. While this could favor the Obama Administration, nonwhites also tend to be less committed voters. In contrast, "Older people look at the changing face of America and say, is this, all of these Latinos and Asians and immigrants, and the way the country is changing a good thing" (Will a Generational Divide Define 2012 Election, 2011, PBS News Hour).

The Republican Party is trying to attract Hispanic voters, given this group's undeniable demographic dominance in the coming years. Yet even Republican strategies who claim that conservative family values will attract Hispanics in the future concede that the GOP has had difficulty winning the trust of Hispanics. And the anti-immigration rhetoric of much of the Republican primary debates is unlikely to win nonwhites to the Republican fold.

Citizens United Facts According to Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), "federal law prohibits corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech" which is classified as an "electioneering communication" or "for speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a candidate" (Citizens United, 2011, Cornell Law School). During the election year of 2008, a conservative nonprofit corporation, Citizens United, released a documentary critical of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

"It sought declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing that (1) §441b is unconstitutional as applied to Hillary; and (2) BCRA's disclaimer, disclosure, and reporting requirements, BCRA §201 and 311, were unconstitutional as applied to Hillary" (Citizens United, 2011, Cornell Law School) Constitutional arguments Citizens United argued that Hillary was not an electioneering communication and that because the documentary.