Campaign ’08 not just for adults — kids love it

updated 8:28 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2008

NEW YORK - "I voted for Barack Abooma!" bragged Davita Randall the other day. One should perhaps forgive the mispronunciation. After all, she and her brother Davin, also an "Abooma" enthusiast, are only in kindergarten.

No, they can't actually vote, but the Randall twins of Elk Grove, Calif., are excited about this election nonetheless. As is first-grader Alex Taylor, who discussed the race animatedly with his mother all the way to their New York City polling station on Super Tuesday — only to see Mom vote another way.

"I voted for Hillary Clinton," said their mother, Sandy Radnovich. "That wasn't his candidate. But I told him, this is what America is all about: free choice."

We already know young voters are showing interest and passion in this 2008 race. What many adults are noticing, though, is that such passion is also infecting much of the too-young-to-vote set, from teens on down, in ways rarely seen before.

And perhaps the Obama campaign should look into getting that pesky voting-age thing changed. Because, maybe not surprisingly, the youthful Illinois senator who's energized enormous crowds of young voters seems to have the affection of the much-younger crowd, too — at least in Democratic households.

"I've noticed a very, very strong interest on the part of supporters of Barack Obama," said school director Elizabeth Bergstein. "One kid's been campaigning for Obama for weeks." And she's really talking young: The students at her Broadway Presbyterian Church Nursery School, just south of Harlem in Manhattan, are three and four.

Kids at her school, she said, "are very engaged in it. Some wear stickers or pins. Or they'll shout, 'Obama!'"

Strawpolls and preschoolers
The preschoolers even held a straw poll on Super Tuesday. No Clinton, no Obama, no John McCain or Mike Huckabee — the contest, meant to introduce kids to the idea of voting, was between SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder. SpongeBob won.

In Alex Taylor's first-grade class in a nearby public school, a poll was taken for real candidates, and Obama won, Alex' mother said. Six students did vote for Clinton, all girls, she said. And if her son was disappointed in his mother's voting choice, well, at least he could identify with Dad, who voted for Obama.

But Clinton supporters can take heart from the carefully chosen words of 13-year-old Eyck Freymann, who is undecided but leaning toward Clinton, although he previously supported John Edwards.

"Edwards was really driving the policy," said Eyck, a confessed political junkie from Manhattan who blogs about current events on his own site, youngsentinel.com, when he's not occupied with eighth-grade matters. "He made universal health care an issue for all the candidates."

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He feels this presidential race has attracted "unprecedented interest" from young people. He's also noticed that most kids he knows (admittedly, in liberal Manhattan) support Obama.

"I know kids even from moderate Republican households who are getting up early and handing out stickers for Obama," Eyck said. "I think they see incredible charisma," he explained. "And a man who speaks passionately, and seems authentic."

Yet Eyck himself narrowly prefers Clinton. "Though my instinct tells me Obama is more electable and would unite the country more, my reason tells me that Clinton has stronger plans on a variety of issues, and that her experience would allow her to be a stronger president," he said.

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