The GOP has a young person problem

"By 11 p.m. Wednesday night, the University of Alabama music hall that played host to the presidential debate had long since cleared, and crowds had moved on to one of several locations: if one were lucky, to the official afterparty at the Hotel Capstone; if one were rich, to one of the candidate’s invite-only galas; and if one were neither — like most college students — to the Cookout on 15th Street.

I nestled into a booth in the back corner of the barbecue chain’s front room. Every table was filled, even at this hour, by college kids. Across from me sat a pair of Alabama undergraduates: Trenton Buffenbarger, a thin redhead, and his friend, Lillie Phillips. They’d just come from a watch party at a glitzy apartment complex down the street. The lucky and rich watched the debate in person; college students, admittedly, were offered a nice consolation prize — the Alabama GOP’s rooftop watch party.

A few college students were among the real lucky ones, though, Buffenbarger told me. The College Republicans got five tickets to the debate hall, divvied out to their executive team. But College Democrats got five, too — “to be fair, or whatever,” he said, disgusted. “I don’t get it.” Buffenbarger’s group, Young Americans for Freedom, didn’t get a single ticket, although some of its executive team found other ways to get in. The rest wound up at the WestGate Luxury Condominiums, watching the debate on TV while munching on club sandwiches and fruit salad, next to the state party’s big brass".