The upcoming Obama/Romney title bout might very well go down as the least enthusiastic in years. The right will hold their noses and vote R while the left will hold their noses and vote D, each side angry, scared, frustrated and unenthused. We're on track for an agonizing squeaker, a civil train wreck, and regardless of the outcome a country as divided as after Bush v. Gore.
Yet the president and the Democrats have a chance to reignite the youthful foot soldiers who made his last campaign as electrifying as that of RFK.
As the OWS movement coalesces around its first actionable objective -- forgiveness of student debt -- the Obama campaign and Democrats in general have an opportunity to harness that energy. The only energy, by the way, emanating from anywhere on the political spectrum left of the extreme right.
Obama's best chance of reelection is to make 2012 a referendum on substantive reform, a simple, three or four point declaration of how he will govern once GOP obstruction is quarantined and neutralized. Restructuring mortgage debt in a meaningful way certainly needs to be one of the points and concrete, radical college debt restructuring is another.
Red or Blue, we all are, have been, know or are currently subsidizing a student. Students are symbols of our nation's future as much as veterans are symbols of her strength. Making sure that America's young have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness isn't right or left, it's absolutely fundamental to who we are and how we feel about ourselves as a nation.
The president's recent executive order for student loan forgiveness of public loans was a smart, important start, however a bolder, more extensive plan encompassing private debt as well needs to be a centerpiece of the 2012 Democratic platform. The plan needs to be radical enough to stun students out of their political cynicism, to see the re-election of the president as their last, best hope at the future that had always been promised them.
Look, America's middle class is undergoing an existential threat. Condemning our recent college graduates to a jobless future as bleak as this jobless present is too heartbreaking to even entertain. Comprehensive student debt reform is good for all Americans.
Youthful enthusiasm is contagious, ask every ad agency that ever was. If Obama can get the youth back in his column their energy will jump start the rest of us into remembering that elections matter.
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