Memo to Republican candidates for federal office

Unless you want to be in a minority party for the rest of time, you need to start being competitive with voters in the 18-35 age range. Sure, we haven’t been the most prolific voters historically. But things are about to get serious, and if you think we’ll continue to stay at home on Election Day you’re wrong. The good news is that we’re open-minded enough to listen, if you talk the right way. Here’s how:

1. Understand that we’re open-minded, industrious and aspirational.

Republicans have struggled with the 18-35 age block (famously so in 2008) since time immemorial. Why? The answer is easy. Fairly or not, it’s viewed as the party of old white men. Think McCain, Dole, Kemp, Cheney, Reagan, Bush the Elder and to a lesser extent the Younger. Contrast that with Obama and a saxophone-playing Clinton.

In the summer of ’08, I heard from many of my contemporaries (I was 32 at the time) that they would vote for Obama because he’s “cool” and that McCain looked, sounded and carried himself like a Wal-Mart greeter. I had to cede the point, even though I was a public supporter of McCain (reluctantly so—I still think Romney would have had a decent, or at least much better, shot at besting Obama).

What we “get”, generally speaking, is ambition and opportunity. The rumors are true—we have a rugged sense of individualism with a side of narcissism. Thus, libertarianism runs in our blood—isn’t that what the internet (that vast something to which we’re addicted) is about, anyway? Wherever it flourishes, freedom often follows. Why else would Iran and China have it censored?

Don’t forget that this generation has produced its fair share of extraordinary wealth already. Google, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, along with a host of brick-and-mortar-type companies, have created some of the richest 20- and 30-somethings in the world. A recent Wall Street Journal article profiled the 20-ish founder of Facebook, and concluded that he was delaying the company’s IPO because it would mean he’d lose some creative control. Mind you, he’s rich already, but an IPO would make him ungodly rich. Like bailing out Medicare-rich.

2. The opening: sell Republican “reforms” as directly protecting our wealth and ambition, and engage in some generational warfare.

We all know intuitively that we won’t see a dime of Social Security, or that if we do it will come at such a steep price that the returns will be in double-digit negative territory. Spending is the problem, and examples abound. Already mentioned: Social Security. Health care is another example. TARP yet another. ARRA another. All of these have something in common—borrowed money spent largely for the benefit of those over 50, or at least that’s how we see it when we see bailed-out bank officers in the newspaper.