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    The Secret to Winning the Youth Vote

    An Iowa State ROTC student named Jessica explained to me how most of her friends, conservatives all, were swayed to the Huck side.

    Initially, most of them supported Thompson because of his traditional conservative stances on abortion and taxation. But a couple months ago, they almost all switched to Huckabee. Was it because of his even more conservative pro-life positions? Was it his loony but still arguable FairTax ideas? Or maybe his views on immigration, compassionate in some cases but also strong when it comes to border security?

    None of the above. They switched to Huckabee, according to Jessica, when they saw his Chuck Norris ads.

    It's stories like these that make you question the campaigns' claims that they have Iowa's student population bent to their will. Sometimes I wonder if you couldn't sabotage the entire "youth vote" by organizing a Phish reunion concert for Jan. 3 in Des Moines.

About Christopher Beam

  • Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.
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