University of Illinois student Monika Patel sits in a lecture hall on a Friday night, not because she is waiting for class to get out, but because she has come to watch the a presidential debate for extra credit.

“I am actually very interested to learn about the issues,” the 18-year-old said.

The candidates talk about Iraq, tax cuts and health care – issues that potentially affect Patel. But candidates tend to discuss how the issues affect all ages groups.

“I don’t really think they address the youth as much as they should because the youth play a very important role in who should become president,” Patel said.

Candidates historically don’t pay attention to youths because the youths don’t vote, and youths don’t vote because candidates don’t pay attention to them, said Lynda Lee Kaid, a professor of telecommunication at the University of Florida. This perpetuates a “vicious cycle,” said Kaid, a coordinator of Uvote2004, a nonpartisan group of scholars working to engage the youths in politics.

“I don’t think many presidential candidates give more than temporary lip service,” she said. “They know the youth don’t vote. Until young people start being more interested in campaigns, no politicians are going to take them seriously.”

In other words, young people are an afterthought for politicians.

“Young people will be targeted to the extent a campaign has money available after higher priorities are fulfilled,” said Jim Nowlan, who campaigned for himself as a candidate for Illinois lieutenant governor in 1972 and for others as campaign director for U.S. Sen. Charles Percy in 1978 and presidential candidate John Anderson in 1980. “I think young people would be considered a lower priority because of their low voting history,” Nowlan said.

Kaid found that young citizens who watched the Democratic primary debates believed the candidates did not care about the youth vote. She said debates held specifically to engage young voters in the election have been practically an insult to young people.

“(They) didn’t really think the candidates were talking to them, or about them, or about any issues that they were concerned about,” Kaid said. “In fact, sometimes they thought (the candidates) were speaking down to them or pandering to them.”

But youths could have “immediate power” if they became involved in local politics, said David King, director of research and surveys at the Harvard Institute of Politics. He noted that there are 511,000 elected officials, only two of whom are president and vice president. As it stands now, however, local politics is largely left up to older Americans.

Some experts say youths just need a message that resonates with them. Mary Fitzgerald, a political science professor at James Madison University, said politicians should reframe their messages so young people understand how the issues affect them directly. Jennifer Phillips, leader of the Harvard Institute of Politics’ National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement, said the issues that politicians talk about are as important to the youth as they are to their parents and grandparents.

For students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and against terrorism combined with the economy are two of their top political concerns, according to an I-ELECT survey. Their elders nationwide care about those same issues.

“The issues are really important to young people,” Phillips said. “(Politicians) are addressing the issues that young people care about, the war, the economy, stuff like that, but not from the perspective of young people.”

It’s not just politicians and elected officials who need to work to address the youth; youths need to participate in the communication process as well, she said.

“I think one of the things that may have to happen this year is that young people step up, make their decision the best that they can and show that they are a big voting bloc,” Phillips said.

But young voters must turn out continually – not just in a high-profile election like the one this November – before politicians will really take notice, said Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

“(This year) won’t reflect what youth turnout is likely to be two years from now, four years from now or eight years from now,” Gans said, “because we are not creating the groundwork for youth to turn out on a sustained basis.”

To that end, Gans suggests that politicians, teachers, parents and youths focus on improving civic education, including getting young people back to reading newspapers and testing them on current events.

In addition, serious research needs to be conducted to get inside the minds of youths, Phillips said. The National Campaign conducts research into just that – who the youth are and what interests them. That information can then go to politicians and communities.

Ultimately, the relationship between politicians and the youth is about as awkward as a junior high dance with boys on one side and girls on the other.

“We’re trying to get them to dance together … to see if we can kind of coax them from their corners with all their preconceived notions,” Phillips said, of the National Campaign’s efforts.

Katie Heinz contributed to this report.