2009: What Happened to the Youth Vote?

That, and other news, in today's Roundup and Recap.

The spin on cable last night had pundits from the right arguing that the results were a referendum on Obama and those on the left contending that it was the economy. And while exit polls in Viriginia and New Jersey showed that voters made their decisions based on the candidate, not the White House, the truth is that young voters did not show up in anywhere near the numbers that they did a year ago, what Howard Fineman called a "revolution in reverse."

Younger voters traditionally don't show up in off year elections, but the great movement that the Obama campaign tapped into via social networking and grassroots organizing ignored these races, . It has yet be channeled, and certainly it remains to be seen whether it is a meaningful shift of the electorate that will turn out next year.

A group of orgs including Rock the Vote, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the Energy Action Coalition released a report timed to the one-year anniversary of Obama's election that gave mixed marks on a variety of issues. Erica Williams, deputy director of Campus Progress, says, “The legislative landscape shows a mixed bag: progress on some issues has been steady; on others, non-existent." Their report is here. One blogger for Rock the Vote notes on their site that the lack of turnout is not due to apathy. "This is not a partisan thing, this is an ‘address my issues and I’ll consider giving you my vote’ thing," she writes.  

John Harris in Politico offers an insightful analysis of Obama, one year after the election, and what may be behind the inability of the President to generate a higher turnout after campaigning for Creigh Deeds and Jon Corzine.

Harris writes, "Obama turns out not to be a Bill Clinton-style centrist or a Paul Wellstone-style liberal. His plans for health care and his trillion-plus dollars in new spending have earned the ire of Rush Limbaugh for being too grandiose and of Arianna Huffington for not being grandiose enough.

"Obama is the president as grand improvisationalist: a leader of epic ambitions who — when faced with a difficult choice — almost always pursues his aims with a pedestrian strategy and style.

"This may be a shrewd approach to governing. But it manages almost by definition to defy and disappoint the huge — and wildly divergent — expectations Obama encouraged supporters to harbor for his presidency."

Victoria Espinel, President Obama's nominee to be the first "copyright czar," told the Senate Judiciary Committee that it is "difficult to overstate the importance of intellectual property to the United States today." Her nomination is supported by media congloms and unions.