I’ve come up with a list before of people who I can understand why they would vote for Barack Obama.  It doesn’t excuse it, but I could at least understand why they would vote for him: Black Americans, single women, unions, trial lawyers.  That’s an abbreviated list.

There’s another group that I am going to add to this list: Virgin voters.  These are young, first time voters.  Now, there are two separate groups of young voters.  First are these virgin voters.  They weren’t around for the 2008 election, where their slightly older peers voted for Dear Ruler by a margin of about 2 to 1.  These virgin voters will likely vote as their parents vote because, for the most part, they don’t follow politics themselves.  They’ve been too busy figuring out what to wear to their homecoming dance or which frat party to attend in their first years of college.  They haven’t really had the life experience (nor developed the cognitive reasoning) to fully form a political opinion.  They are also, generally, not likely to go to the polls at all.  But perhaps they should stop to reflect on how difficult it was for them to secure a summer job, if they got one at all.  They can thank Barack Obama’s recovery for that.  Just the other day, our Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, was cheering over the 17.1% unemployment rate for young people (16-24).  Cheering … really.  Is this administration off its rocker?

Then there are young voters (below the age of 30) who DID vote for Obama in 2008.  They showed up in record numbers to vote for the coolest, smartest, most post-modern candidate ever to grace the presidential ballot.  Being young, feeling “cool” about voting for Obama meant more than the consequences of his promised policies.  Four years later … how does it feel to be “cool” now?  As you graduated from college, the majority of you have now been forced to take jobs that don’t even require a college education.  A recent survey found that 84% of young Americans said they had to delay planned major life changes because of the economy.  Many have moved back in with their parents.

Elections have consequences.  Unfortunately, an entire generation of young voters learned that one the hard way.