On Monday, the American Majority Action launched Students Against Barack Obama (SABO). The launch is a reaction to the group’s dissatisfaction with what they see as the Romney campaign’s lackluster effort to target young voters.
“The Romney campaign isn’t doing enough using Paul Ryan or doing enough to reach out to younger voters,” SABO founder Celia Bigelow said.
Yesterday, SABO released its first web ad, “Want Jobs? Fire Obama!” on its website, StudentsAgainstBarackObama.org, advocating the message “Say No to B.O. in 2012”.
“It’s cheeky, yet fitting, to call this organization ‘Student Against BO’, because President Obama’s policies have stunk for young Americans,” Bigelow wrote in a press release announcing the new video.
SABO plans to focus on issues that hit close to home for young voters such as unemployment and college debt. Forty-two percent of college graduates under 30 now live with their parents, and 53 percent of graduates under 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.
“President Obama is morphing Generation Y into Generation ‘Why Us?'” said AMA spokesman Ron Meyer. “Jobless, underemployed young Americans have two choices: mope in our parents’ basements or work to change our current situation.”
SABO will also hold voter registration drives on college campuses and use social media and a pledge-to-vote website to remind young people to vote on Nov. 6.
“Obama administration has been doing voter registration all year around.” Bigelow said. “You don’t really see conservative leaders taking the same approach on college campuses. We want to give students the tools to hold effective voter registration.”
A New York Times/CBS News poll revealed that Obama leads the youth vote by 8 points, but this is a significant drop from 2008. Four years ago, Obama won 18-29 year olds by 34 points, and over half of the potential youth voters did not vote.
“For young Americans, the combined economic hardship of unemployment and debt has never been worse in modern history… It’s no wonder young Americans are abandoning President Obama in droves. His policies have hurt them more than anybody else,” AMA President and CEO Ned Ryun said in a statement.
“We are a grass roots organization at heart. Romney folks aren’t doing a good job reaching out to young people,” Meyer added. “It’s up to young people, up to us, if we want to fix this.”