Year of Millennial Revolt

"Here’s a New Year’s prediction guaranteed to last longer than your new gym membership: 2014 will be the year of the millennial revolt," write Chris Beach and Alison Howard. "It will be the year that a majority of millennials become disillusioned with their allegiance to today’s liberal movement and look elsewhere for political relevance."

They argue "the shift is already underway" (see Harvard University's Institute of Politics survey showing millennials' approval of Obama at 41%) and "the Obama administration has brought this upon itself, through its policies and its juvenile and patronizing outreach to millennials."

Pajama Boy ("a far cry from the Marlboro Man"), The Life of Julia ("the campaign wanted to paint her as an 'independent' woman, but it only revealed her extreme dependency on all things government"), and Colorado's pro-Obamacare ads paint an unappealing picture of millennials:

These ads depict millennials as emotional, instinctive animals acting on appetites, impulses, and desires rather than moral and intellectual beings capable of acting according to reason and prudence. ...

For many millennials, the scales have fallen. They realize that the future of Obamacare depends on their signing up to pay higher insurance premiums and deductibles. In the era of iPhones and PS4s, they realize that a government that can’t design a website can’t be expected to manage the intricacies of the entire health-care industry. In the wake of the news that the NSA collects mountains of metadata, they also fret that the government that wants you to talk about health care could (with a warrant) listen in on that very conversation.

Citing data suggesting "millennials actually share more conservative views of government than the conventional wisdom, or even millennials themselves, would lead you to believe," the authors argue that conservatives have a a real opportunity "to win back millennials."

Rather than pander or talk down to them, conservatives must offer positive, uplifting solutions that emphasize upward mobility, opportunity, and personal liberty through education, job creation, and reforming the over-intrusive federal government."

Read the full article, Millennials Are Tiring of Liberal Failures.

Voters 18-24 Voters More Conservative, Libertarian

"According to a spring Harvard Institute of Politics poll," writes Alana Goodman at Commentary magazine, "18 to 24-year-olds are far less likely to support President Obama than 25 to 29-year olds, and they're more likely to hold conservative tendencies. ... There is also a libertarian streak among the youngest voters that isn't as apparent in the slightly older group:"

Today, specifically, the youngest potential voters are more likely than their older peers to think it is important to protect individual liberties from government, the Harvard data suggest, and less likely to think it is important to tackle things like claimate change. health care or immigration.
Mr. Tevlin, for instance, found the Supreme Court ruling upholding Mr. Obama’s health care law troubling. “I don’t think the government should force you to buy anything,” he said.

NYTimes article: "Stung by Recession, Young Voters Shed Image as Obama Brigade"