"Road to the White House 2012: Politics, Media & Technology"

By Sammi Wong Student Writer In the Sept. 7 “Road to the White House 2012: Politics, Media & Technology” presentation, Mike Hais and senior fellow Morley Winograd, co-authors of the book “Millennial Momentum: How a new generation is remaking America,” discussed the impact the generation of millennials will have on the upcoming presidential election. According to the book, the millennials are the most populous generation in American history and their “unique blend of civic idealism and savvy pragmatism will enable us to overcome the internal culture wars and institutional malaise currently plaguing the country.” “Most of the folks in Congress right now are all baby boomers,” Winograd said. “They strongly believe in values and are not willing to compromise those values. They want to argue and not settle anything.” On the other hand, he said, the millennials were brought up to be confident, team oriented and high achieving. They are the balance between the baby boomers, who are idealistic, and generation x, who are pragmatic to a fault. “Millennials do both. They want to get stuff done but are still motivated by causes to change the world.” “The millennials have real concerns such as student loans, etc,” Hais said. “However, their willingness to engage with people around the world is unique to this generation more so than any other generation. The tolerance and communities they seek will have a global reach.” So far the millennials still identify as Democrat in a 2:1 ratio. The only question that remains about their impact is whether they will go and actually vote in the upcoming election, Hais said. “Their impact will be significant soon since they will make up 1/3 of voters by 2020.” "Road to the White House 2012: Politics, Media & Technology" is a weekly series presented in partnership with USC Dornsife College's Unruh Institute of Politics and the USC School of Policy, Planning & Development's Bedrosian Center on Governance and Public Enterprise.