A New York Times article this morning examines the latest iteration of an age-old problem for the Democratic party: getting young voters to give a shit about politics between presidential elections. Are these kids already bored with the "Democrat" fad?

Barack Obama won an extraordinary two-thirds of the "youth vote" in 2008. College students nationwide spent all of that year looking forward to that special moment on the first Tuesday in November, when they could all pat themselves on the back outside the polling stations where they'd just voted for a self-aware literary black person.

But then, after Barack Obama became a fairly conventional president, many young people reverted to their traditional apathy. Democrats are worried about a big drop-off this November in first-time young voters from 2008, a group whose turnout they'll need to counteract the Republicans' army of paranoid old white people.

The kids just aren't feeling the Democratic "vibe," though, as this Colorado weight-lifting bro explains:

Philip Stricker, 21, a biology major who voted for Mr. Obama but says he has not been paying much attention to politics lately, uses a nontechnical term to describe the phenomenon.

"There's a vibe," he said on a recent afternoon, while pumping weights at the gym. "Right now it seems like Republicans just care a lot more than Democrats."

[Image via AP]