It was both the youth vote and Latinos that helped get President Barack Obama elected in 2008. One is still hanging in there and the other has real reservations over what he has done for them. Even though Hispanics are concerned that the President hasn’t done enough for their people, they still support him. Considering the way the GOP looks down on this group, that’s a wise choice. The younger vote is something else, and unless Obama puts them back to work soon, they may just skip the elections.
Only 55.3 percent of Americans age 16 to 29 have jobs. According to Brad Chase, Barack Obama missed the boat on two issues. Rather than create jobs for the young unemployed, he talked about it in community forums. Rather then really providing a bailout on the huge burden of college loans, he only reduced rates by a pathetic 0.5 percent. This has led to an approval rate by the 18 to 29 age group of less than 50 percent.
But the Prez just may have his sights on the burgeoning Latino voting population to carry him through in 2012. Combining this with running against a Republican Congress that has done everything they can to defeat anything he proposes, but has done nothing of their own in the last three years may be a winning combination. At the end of the year, Hispanics favored the President over GOP front-runner Mitt Romney by a margin of over 2 to 1.
