Adam Nagourney's article today in the New York Times hits on a salient point. Speaking of Obama's appeal to the so-called "youth vote," Nagourney writes:

The truth of the matter is that every four years -- as sure as a sunset -- stories appear about a surge of interest among younger voters in presidential politics, typically predicting a jump in turn-out that will benefit one campaign or another. It rarely turns out to be true: the percentage of voters under 30 in the total electorate was basically unchanged between 2000 and 2004 -- 17 percent, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls.

Every presidential cycle since at least Bill Clinton blew his saxophone and answered the question "boxers or briefs?" on MTV the media has played up the youth vote, as if it were some substantial voting bloc to be won. Nevermind that it was a Democratic candidate who always seemed to win it, or that those candidates in the primary who had it rarely seemed to win (e.g. Howard Dean), the youth vote was very important to capture. Get-out-the-vote drives like MTV's "Rock the Vote" and the 2004 "Vote or Die" campaign, led by rapper Sean "P Diddy" Combs, both of which were more or less Democratic drives, also fed the hype.

But, as Nagourney notes, the youth vote is largely an illusion. The larger point is that he or she who tries to capture the "youth vote" is probably on a fool's errand. Even John Kerry, who again we were told had captured the "youth vote," couldn't overcome all the other voting blocs in Ohio, where the "youth vote" is abnormally large due to the abundance of college campuses. Indeed, whatever gains a candidate might receive by appealing to the 18-to-24-year-old crowd are probably lost by alienating the population that actually does vote.

Which is what the Des Moines Register's David Yepsen is getting to in his column ripping Obama for ditching last month's AARP debate:

On top of that, this wasn't just an Iowa debate. It was a prime-time event broadcast around the country by public television stations. And it was sponsored by AARP, the largest advocacy group for senior citizens.

Rule of thumb: Stick with issues that seniors care about.