OBAMA’S PERILOUS
RELATIONSHIP
WITH YOUNG VOTERS
BY PETER GOODMAN
a
ILLUSTRATION BY WARD SUTTON
Obama &
Young Voters
ICON: MICHAEL MYERS
t the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall of 2008, the spectacle
of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign
dominated Meghan Gilliland’s sophomore
year. Going to the library, traversing the
quad, or passing through a campus gathering place known as The Pit entailed running
a gauntlet of clipboard-wielding Obama volunteers beseeching
students to vote. A surge of enthusiasm among young voters
would prove decisive in delivering North Carolina to Obama.
Nationally, he would capture two of every three ballots cast by
voters under 30, a crucial component of his victory.
Obama inspired Gilliland, and
she urged her friends to vote
for him. He was vowing to pull
troops out of Iraq and close the
military detention facility at
Guantanamo Bay. She felt certain he would repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
policy for gay soldiers, and embrace marriage equality for all
gays and lesbians, a major issue
among younger voters.
ELECTION
2012
Obama’s ascendance as the
nation’s first African-American president held special
resonance for Gilliland, a white
woman who had grown up in
a North Carolina town she describes as “pretty redneck.”
“A lot of people still use the
N-word there,” she says. “They
know it’s wrong, but they still
use it.”
On the November night when
HUFFINGTON
06.17.12