sandwich chain. Once, he found
himself delivering a sandwich to
a former college professor who
had previously guaranteed Matt
would get a good job. (“He didn’t
tip very well,” Matt recalls.) He
eventually took refuge in law
school, adding $30,000 to his
pile of debt.
As he drove around in his
1999 Taurus, the exuberance
of his student years yielding
to the grim reality of low-wage
service-sector life, Matt listened to audio books about the
economy, many offering a libertarian perspective. He had previously supported Obama’s economic policies, and particularly
his efforts to stimulate growth
through increased government
spending, but he began to view
those measures as exacerbating the problem – by forcing the
government to become just as
dependent on borrowing as an
overzealous credit card holder.
“He was doing exactly the opposite of what I thought would
be best,” Matt says.
He was particularly put off
by Obama’s continuation of
the taxpayer bailouts of Wall
Street begun by President Bush.
“Virtually everyone hired by
the Obama administration was
brought in from the upper echelons of business, and they
brought enormous conflicts of
interest,” Matt says. “It’s cronyism. I just became very disillusioned with the entire system.”
Matt’s reading and thinking
influenced Meghan, for whom
economic concerns were about
to become paramount: Last
month, she graduated from
UNC with about $15,000 in
debt and deep worries about
her own job prospects.
By then, Meghan was also
souring on Obama, whom she
once embraced because of his
unequivocal stance against
the Iraq War — a war that was
personal for her. A friend who
had served as a Marine in Iraq,
someone she remembered as
“a really good guy,” had seemed
transformed by combat.
“He was just very, very angry
about everything,” she says. “He
cursed constantly. He wouldn’t
really talk about his experience,
but he was talking about people
in the Middle East, like they
were all the enemy. He was really
into playing violent video games.
It was uncomfortable and tense.”
As Obama expanded the war
in Afghanistan, she found herself questioning his integrity. As
he declined to shut Guantanamo
in the face of Congressional opposition, she felt betrayed.
“The whole situation is com-
ELECTION
2012
Obama &
Young Voters
HUFFINGTON
06.17.12