At least that’s what early 2008 congressional preference polls are showing, Ben Adler reports at Politico. In 2004, 18 to 29-year olds favored John Kerry by 9 points. But today, Democrats beat generic Republicans among the demographic by a whopping 32 points, 62 to 30. The only potentially bad news is that a significant number of young people have joined their elders in being hypnotized by Rudy Giuliani‘s 9/11 myths: When it comes to presidential politics, the former New York mayor seems to have the ability to close some, but not all, of the youth gap between Republicans and Democrats. So candidates do matter.

Talking to Politico, College Republican Chairman Charlie Smith brings out the old saw that young people will vote for Republicans once they realize how expensive universal health care is and how invested they are in all of that “ownership society” stuff. Yawn. Remember the conservative astroturf youth group Students for Saving Social Security? They sure were successful!

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.