The undecided bloc has shrunk from 14% to 7% and the polls are showing Obama ahead by a furlong as the race rounds the final bend. Both sides know that the biggest risk to Obama’s election is youth voter complacency. We are about to see the the biggest youth marketing campaign of the year: Get Out the Vote. Many of these efforts rely on celebrity influence:
Comedienne Sarah Silverman is asking young voters to visit or call their relatives in an imaginative effort called The Great Schlep. Her video calls for young people to visit their relatives in Florida and convince them to vote for Obama. If you can’t visit, call (mini-Schlep). The Great Schelp was featured on Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood and on Facebook.
Hip hop artists, The Beastie Boys, are staging a series of get out the vote concerts featuring Sheryl Crow, Norah Jones, Ben Harper and Crosby & Nash. The concerts will be held in three swing states: WI, MN and VA. T.I., Ludacris and Ne-Yo will tour the country to educate potential young voters for two special episodes of 106 and Park that are scheduled to air in October. A MySpace- and HeadCount-sponsored contest among colleges to see which can sign up the most voters. Death Cab will perform on the winning campus.
Will all this effort make a difference? We won’t know until election day. What is apparent is that getting out the vote could make the difference in who wins.
Gallup figures released today (10.19.08) look at the race according to two scenarios. In the traditional approach, voters’ intention to participate in the current election as well as their voting history in previous presidential elections is considered. This method shows Obama leading McCain by just three points, 49% to 46%. The second approach considers only voters’ self-professed likelihood to vote in 2008, and does not factor in whether they voted in past elections. This approach assumes new registrants and infrequent voters will turn out on Election Day to a greater extent than has been the case historically. Using this approach, Obama leads by seven points, 51% to 44%, twice the margin as the first scenario. No wonder Obama is concerned about complacency, despite his clear lead in the polls.
