Democracy Reborn

By Richard Stengel, Managing Editor

Politicians always talk about how young people will inherit the future. And, of course, that is literally true. But I've always suspected that politicians talk about young people not because they are trying to reach young voters but because that's what older voters like to hear. Traditionally, the older you are, the more likely you are to vote; the younger you are, the less likely. For generations, older voters have been making decisions for young people, who stayed away from the ballot box.

The great educator John Dewey once wrote that "democracy needs to be reborn in every generation." The problem was that between 1972, when 18-year-olds first got the right to vote, and 2000, youth voting decreased in each election cycle. But there are signs that that dispiriting trend is shifting. Youth participation increased in 2004, and this year there seems to be a youthquake. Young people sense that they are coming of age at a time when leadership--and their role in choosing it--really matters.

As David Von Drehle's illuminating cover story makes clear, Barack Obama has been the principal catalyst and beneficiary of greater youth involvement. But youth engagement is not limited to Senator Obama. Senator Clinton has her fair share, and the candidate with the most zealous young supporters is probably Ron Paul. Von Drehle reports that young people are on the front lines of democracy, reinventing political participation through both new technology and old-fashioned canvassing.

TIME has been taking the lead in seeking to revive civic engagement among young people. Our Sept. 10, 2007, cover story, "The Case for National Service," argued that public service should become a universal rite of passage for young Americans. Since then, Senator Obama has made national service part of his platform, while Senator Clinton has pledged to double the educational stipends for AmeriCorps volunteers. As a direct result of the interest in that cover story, we are planning to sponsor a summit meeting on national service in the fall.

Our April 17, 2006, cover story, "Dropout Nation," helped spark a national discussion of one of America's most pressing educational problems: the more than 1 million students who give up on high school each year. As a result of that story, we became part of the anti-dropout coalition led by Colin Powell's nonprofit, America's Promise Alliance, which is launching 100 summits in 50 states to tackle this problem.

One of our responsibilities is to help make sure that democracy is reborn in every generation. TIME is the fourth most read consumer magazine among college students (behind Cosmopolitan, PEOPLE and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED), according to the Student Monitor, and TIME.com has a greater proportion of 18-to-34-year-olds in its audience than any of its major news competitors except Yahoo! News and Google News. And don't forget the nearly 4 million children, from kindergarten through seventh grade, who read TIME FOR KIDS. May they all become informed, engaged citizens!

Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR