Why Senator Clinton will have a tough time in 2008 due to gamers

The Family Entertainment Protection Act (FEPA) was introduced by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Essentially, if you sell a "M" or "AO" rated game to a minor, you will be fined or do community service. Ridiculous considering children playing those types of games usually procure them from willing adult cohorts (ie. parents/siblings/friends/etc).

Who should instead be the target of said bill? The adults that purchase the games for the minors. Truthfully, if kids are stealing cars and they play Grand Theft Auto, there's a lot more to it than the fact that the game is teaching them to steal. There's some major responsibility and accountability issues by whomever is the guardian of those minors. Those are the root of the issue, not the merchants. But both Clinton and Lieberman are anti-game politicos. It's funny how Hillary was the one that said "it takes a village to raise a child" and yet FEPA blames the guy that sells the lollipop and is outside of the whole issue itself.

So why would going against the gaming community be bad for election? Why is Hillary and Joe getting in bed with ESRB for a "too little, too late" ad blitz? Let's look at some statistics:

• 18-29 year olds make up one-fifth of the voting population in 2004.
  
• According to CIRCLE's September 2006 study, two million more projected young voters turned out for 2006. There was a total of 41.9 million potential young voters between the ages of 18-29.
  
• Young Voter Strategies confirm the above fact by CIRCLE for the November 2006 elections via exit polls.

So what does this have to do with anything when it comes to gamers? Here's some more facts straight from the Entertainment Software Association's 2006 data:

• A vast majority (85%) of all voter parents (both gamer and non-gamer) say that they - not government, retailers, or game publishers - should take the most responsibility in monitoring children's exposure to games that may have content that is inappropriate for minors. Further, by a nearly two to one margin (60% vs. 36%) parents agree that it is not the role of government to regulate game sales in an attempt to protect kids from exposure to violent and/or sexual video game content.
  
• Ninety-one percent of parents surveyed who have children under the age of 18 said they monitor the content of the computer and video games their children play.
  
• 26% of PC gamers and 35% of console gamers are between the ages of 18 and 35 years.
  
• Eighty-seven percent of game players under the age of 18 report that they get their parents’ permission when renting or buying games, and 89 percent say their parents are present when they buy games.
  
• The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

As you can see, the age group between 18-35, the average age is 33, right outside of the young voter range. If young voters make up more than 20% of the voters, then you're looking at a significant shift by those effected by such bills as shown above. Correlating the ESA data, the FEPA bill really deals with 9% of parents that apparently don't monitor their children's game usage or what they play and yet it hurts gaming economics by hurting the merchants for acts from children they can't control (eg. Hot Coffee incidence). This is a community to be reckoned with and can mobilize very easily (just look at the gamer community vs. Jack Thompson). It's also one of the many reasons why Senator Clinton will probably fail at any sort of election run for Presidency. It's one thing to represent one state in the Senate, it's another to represent all Americans and to throw American gamer integrity out the window under the guise of family protection.

At least that's my two cents.