This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

That old saying – “there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t know if it is sunlight shining at end of the tunnel or an oncoming train” – comes to mind as I think about the next presidential election.

The light could be:

• That candidates other than President Joe Biden or former president Donald Trump will emerge, giving us better candidates.  That would be sunlight.
• That the train comes, running over all of us on the way toward Biden and Trump.  And that would be – obviously — getting run over.

Two authors in the New York Times wrote a column that could shed light – pardon the play on words – on the next election, positive light.

They are Celinda Lake and Mac Heller, the first a Democrat party strategist, and the second a political documentary producer.

Here is how their column started:

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“It’s easy to envision the 2024 presidential election becoming the third straight contest in which a veteran Democrat goes up against Donald Trump.  Once again, the Democrat wins the popular vote, but swing states are tighter.  Could go either way — and has, right?

“But things are very different this time, and here’s why:  The candidates might not be changing — but the electorate has.”

To buttress their point, Lake and Heller produced statistics to verify that voters are getting younger and more willing to consider important issues than just raw politics:

• Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote.  In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.
• Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die.  So, in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.

Which means, the two authors say, that, between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 per cent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.

And, unlike previous generations, those in Gen Z usually vote.

Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 per cent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 per cent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 per cent higher in midterms.

The two authors add that Trump is not necessarily the deciding factor for these young voters.

“When pollsters ask why, Gen Z voters say their motivation is not a party or a candidate.  It is, instead, strong passion on one or more issues — a much more policy-driven approach than the more partisan voting behavior of their elders.

“That policy-first approach, combined with the issues they care most about, have led young people in recent years to vote more frequently for Democrats and progressive policies than prior generations did when of similar age — as recent elections in Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin have shown.”

American voters historically have tended somewhat to become more conservative as they age – and that includes me.

Other factors in the New York Times piece:

• About 48 per cent of Gen Z voters identify as a person of color, while the boomers they’re replacing in the electorate are 72 per cent White.
• Gen Z voters are on track to be the most educated group in our history, and the majority of college graduates are now female. Because voting participation correlates positively with education, expect women to speak with a bigger voice in our coming elections.
• Gen Z voters are much more likely to cite gender fluidity as a value, and they list racism among their greatest concerns.
• Further, they are the least religious generation in our history.

All of this doesn’t cut fully one or the other in terms of parties.  There are implications for both.

For Republicans, the message is obvious:  Listen to the voices of this soon-to-be-dominant group of voters as you formulate your policies on climate, abortion, guns, health care, inclusion, and everything else.

For Democrats:  Meet young voters where they are — on social media, not cable news.  Make your messages short, funny, and somehow sarcastic, yet authentic and earnest at the same time.  Your focus should be issues first, and parties never.

Could young voters embrace third-party candidates?

Perhaps and that is another major implication for both parties.

Past elections show that Gen Z voters shop for candidates longer and respond favorably to new faces and issue-oriented candidates.  They like combining their activism with their voting and don’t feel bound by party loyalty.

And this final point from the authors.

“We suspect both campaigns know most or all of what we have written here.  Habit may prevent them from acting on it, but they have these numbers.  In one of life’s great ironies, the group that doesn’t know it is young voters.  They think of themselves as ignored, powerless, and marginalized in favor of big money and shouting boomers.

“But over the next year, they’ll figure it out.  Gen Z may get tired of waiting for Washington to unite to solve problems, so could grab the national microphone and end up deciding the 2024 presidential race.”

Armed with all this political intelligence, if I was still a political strategist, I would consider it very carefully.  Then, I would design issue-oriented campaigns to appeal to voters regardless of party.

And, as a voter, I hope this works, for it would be part of enabling us to get away from the kinds of campaigns today that criticize anyone and everything without proposing any real-world solutions.