The probable question sitting on the tongues of modern-day Hamlets – passive Democrats – is: “To vote, or not to vote?” National polls have Obama ahead in electoral votes with a high projection of him winning. Some believe he will merely walk back into the White House with ease, but that’s not the case. The outcome of this year’s election rests in the hands of unlikely voters living in swing states. Last week, after working alongside the Suffolk University Political Research Center, USA Today released a poll analyzing the profile of unlikely voters and non-voters for this year’s upcoming election. Ironically, the results show unlikely voters favoring Obama more than two to one over Romney. The poll also showed 40 percent of eligible voters favoring Obama do not plan to vote this November. Their reasons include not having the time to vote, a disinterest in politics, disliking the choice of candidates and believing their vote does not matter. This is unfamiliar territory for the president. In 2008, the Obama campaign manufactured its success largely because it was able to rally and motivate those who had not voted in the past – the largest number of voters in election history since 1960 confirmed that. Not to mention his trendy “Change” slogan, which served as a caption to that weird Myspace-angle picture of himself. This year’s election is different. Obama must re-motivate Democratic voters who are discouraged by his failure to fulfill the promises he made in 2008. “The Obama campaign is engaged in these efforts,” said Robert Hogan, political science associate professor in an email. “But they are probably less likely to pay off as handsomely [this] time around.” Indeed, and according to the USA Today poll, Republicans are more active in following the campaign than their counterpart. In the swing states, this manifestation of enthusiastic Republicans will prove problematic for Obama. “Campaign resources are targeted mainly to battleground states where the outcome hangs in the balance,” Hogan said. Among this year’s battleground states are those with a deeply rooted conservative history and states where the economy has declined since Obama has been in office. Take Florida, a state that has suffered ever since Hurricane Obama rolled in, leaving a torn economy in its wake that caused home foreclosures and small businesses to fail faster than Katrina broke the levees. Nevada, a state that has been slow to recover from the nation’s highest unemployment rate, is an Obama-made jackpot of a win for Romney. The only chance Obama has here is in appealing to lower-income families. These “lower-income” families were defined as “low-income” families before a certain individual was inaugurated in January 2009. Not a coincidence. Obama is not an idiot, though. His clever plan to create and target a larger number in the poorer social class – now plural, classes – and preach about change to secure his re-election is absolutely genius. But this country does not need its citizens to become poorer. This country needs a thriving economy, so its people can work and make money. In order to do that, jobs must be available, and one of the ways jobs are created is in allowing small businesses the ability to grow. And in many of the swing states, destroying small businesses was something of a specialty for Obama, which is why Democrats are weary of showing up to the polls in November. And why a majority of the swing states will favor Romney.  
Taylor Hammons is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Atlanta.
____ Contact Taylor Hammons at [email protected]