Obama's speech on race this week came at the precise moment when I'd been mulling over his appeal to my generation of boomers. It's been somewhat staggering for me to encounter the number of close friends of my own '60s-generation cohort who, in the past few weeks, have been rather quietly confessing to me their own begrudging admiration for Obama.
And I do mean confessing. For those of us who grew up reading Ramparts, not Facebook, it's somewhat uncomfortable, if not downright embarrassing, to admit to investing any real hope in a Democratic presidential candidate. It might be hard for the Millennials or even the Xers to fully grasp, but my generation was radicalized by LBJ Democrats more than by Nixon Republicans. We thought Jimmy Carter was a Southern conservative (and we were right). Bill Clinton, we thought, was the best Republican president since Ike (and I think the record confirms that notion as well).
But along came John Edwards and Obama this time around, and it was hard to deny that we were starting to hear some of the same arguments we had wearily been making over the last four decades finally coming from the presidential-campaign stump.
Not that we've been pushovers for Obama's message of Change We Can Believe In. Coming to us veterans of the Gulf of Tonkin, Chicago '68 and Kent State, it is a little bit like the Jehovah's Witnesses trying to hawk the latest edition of The Watchtower at a convention of atheists.
But I know I speak for these same friends when I say you can now count us among the O-boomers. We've sipped no Kool-Aid, nor been seduced by focus-grouped campaign rhetoric, nor driven senseless by finely tuned speechifying. Instead, we've looked around and reached three simple conclusions:
Read the rest of the post here.
Cross-posted at L.A. Weekly.
But like I said, glad you brought it up, because this whole business gets my inner Adrian Monk in a dither. On TV, I saw Stewart and Colbert referred to as baby boomers. Ridiculous! My gosh, they're only in their forties. How long do the idjuts think the post war baby boom lasted, anyway? Me, I think it lasted a couple of years. 1946-1947. But what are you gonna do? "They" paste the labels on us, and we live with it. The only solution is not to care. Cuz they are not gonna stop. God only knows what your age group might suddenly be named tomorrow.
I brought my wife to what was amongst the first of the public rallies for Obama, held in Los Angeles, eleven days after his announcement in Illinois.
There were 10,000 people to hear Barack speak.
Something is going on and it needs to be appreciated not only for the depth of support but for the depth of the intellect involved. Obama connects and is for real but we are too and this is the basic requirement of progress. Thanks, Marc.
Americans are sooooooo good at NIT-PICKING themselves INTO MYOPIA and then
voting FOR THE WORSE candidate because they are confused, stubborn, spoiled li'l BRATS.
HRC and HRC supporters like to tout her political experience as being an asset, but how can anyone look at her record and think she will actually fight for any change? She is the epitome of a status quo politician.
She will certainly be a much better president than McCain, but that's setting the bar really low.
I voted for Senator Clinton based on the economy. I think she is by far the best positioned to argue that she can restore our economy--she will use the proven Clinton model. Obama can't really claim any particular advantage over McCain in the economic sphere--and the economy is what will determine this election.
So, yes, Senator Clinton won't stray too far from the status quo, but that's because she knows powerful forces are arrayed against change--even within the Democratic party. Look at this congress and tell me you don't believe that! Obama promises change, but he won't be able to deliver (if he can even win the general election which I doubt). Not because he won't try, but because he won't have the votes.
One significant difference between Clinton's new health care plan and Obama's is that Clinton wants mandates and Obama wants to start out with making coverage available to everyone but with voluntary participation. One reason he gave for this decision was that most Republicans will balk at the idea of mandates and that could prevent a health care plan from getting passed.
Regarding an overall promise for change, Obama has mostly promised that the real work will begin when and if he takes office. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a presidential historian, recently explained it thus:
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...what history argues, and I think this is what [Obama's] arguing, is that the only time we've seen progressive change in this country is when the country is mobilized to push the people in Congress to action. That's what happened in the Progressive Movement in the turn of the century, it's what happened in the New Deal, it's what happened in the '60s. And I think that's what he's arguing. That "I can't just get it down by myself; I need to have that movement out there that will push us in Washington, me and them included." And that's what I think is the strength of that message that he's trying to espouse.
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I've given you two, real-world, reasons why Obama has a better chance than Hillary at passing health care reform: 1) his plan does not alienate Republicans as much as Hillary's does, and 2) he is planning on using a tried and true model that has been proven by history to be effective at achieving progressive change.
The only reason you gave for Hillary having a better chance is her previous failed efforts along with a lame excuse for why she failed. I hope she has learned her lesson from that failure but all the secrecy and lies that surround her campaign indicate otherwise.
You may doubt he can win the general election, but a real array of voters wants the kind of change that Obama represents, and they'll surprise you whether you believe it or not.
People are sick of the tactics the Clinton campaign has resorted to, and once Obama has the nomination, he will sweep into office with a mandate and plenty of new Senate and Congressmen to change this nation's course.
Clinton supporters are the neo-naysayers, and their willingness to do anything to win is as pitiful as it is cynical. I give them their due, however, because they honestly believe that only slight, incremental changes are possible because that's all they were ever able to take on with their distracted, enemy obsessed politics.
Another "truth" that seems to have slipped their grasp is that people who are only passingly involved in politics only vote in the general election and not in the primaries. People who vote in the primaries, in contrast, are much more likely to vote in the general election than those who don't.
What these folks are missing in their analysis is the simple fact that the young voters today have at their fingertips vast stores of information, and they know how to access it with an efficient virtuosity that would leave most older folks stunned if they would only take the time to watch a twenty-something year old surf the net for a few hours.
As a person sitting between these two worlds, I remember going to the library and spending many hours simply trying to track down a hand full of paper documents. I also watched and took part with eagerness as the internet grew from "world-wide and a micron deep" to the amazing tool it is today, where I can literally access thousands upon thousands of sources of information, from scholarly works to opinionated blogs. And even more importantly, I can compare and contrast all of these sources, forming and reforming my judgements as necessary as I go, in the space of time it would have taken to track down a single source in the pre-internet days.
The one difference that probably has the most impact on the divide between the way the young and the Boomers view the world is that Boomers by and large are still relying on old technology and limited sources for their information, such as TV and newspapers. The young can and do scoff at how uninformed the older generation seems to be. Are they wrong?
We can do much better I believe.
The cable channels got their start with the OJ trial - whites against blacks, women against the man. Lots of race and sex to jazz things up.
The media's prejudice in the OJ trial was against any possibility that OJ could be innocent. I decided, because of the prejudice shown, OJ was most likely innocent. Still believe that.
In this 2008 Election season - so far it has been blacks and their sympathizers against whites and men against the woman.
So I have reason to believe - because of the prejudice against Hillary, she is most likely the best candidate for President.
This pass-the-torch approach smacks of the narcissism of guilt that the Boomers suffer from feeling like they're the ones driving the country into the ground, combined with the narcissism of recapturing their lost youth by voting for the hip, young rock-star candidate. Well, age is no stalwart against the follies of youth, especially when you refuse to grow up.
It is not the 'folly of youth' at work here, but a reasoned and thoughtful mind. I am a 'baby boomer' from 1956, and I think Obama is the best chance we have had for a great President in my voting lifetime.
But anyone who thinks either of our two awesome dem candidates would have a bad presidency is wrong.
Like Jackie Robinson, when you're first, you're going to bust your butt to set the precedent for all to follow.
I'm all Hillary in the primary. I love the Clintons and everything they stand for.
But once the primary is over and should Obama win, everything else, the bickering, the "aha" factor, the nit picking about delegates etc. is gone, moot, history.
We'll all be democrats in the same foxhole, protecting each other's back from the attacking republicans.
And anyone who decides to not vote because their candidate didn't win has no real argument here.
So take your ball and bat and go home and have a pity party.
This was the presidential contest of all contests. I have the feeling betweent he Clinton's race-baiting, their back-stabbing, their push-pull politics (examples....where do I start....Hillary's CIC imaginary threshold that in her opinion Obama hasn't reached, Hillary's attempt at two-for-one when she is in second place, Bill Clinton calling Obama's patriotism into question, etc.) is pathetic. I HAD great admiration for the the two of them, but they keep digging their grave. And we all know the first rule, "when you are in a hole, quit digging".
It's so much easier to stand back and "see" what the active parties have to offer because they "need" your vote.
Republicans and independents did decide the last election, you can definitely take credit for that. Thanks for four more years of Bush.
The last great idiot you came up with was Ross Perot. Impressive!
Hillary Clinton would make a ten times better president than John McCain. So would Obama.
"Take a stand and make a mark".....John Jakes
You need your own primary.
But let's leave the highly dubious notion that Marc Cooper is a radical aside, and deal with Cooper's "generation." To support his claim, does he sight any of these people? Nope, he sites two right wingers, and even here Herbert is utterly unrepresentive of the general reaction at The National Review, where Obama's speech was sneered at.
The other thing here for those interested in a little reading between the lines is "the dissapointment" bit. What Cooper is telling you is that once his real purpose has been accomplished (Clinton's defeat),.it won't take him long to start in on Obama. Bear in mind, Cooper has dumped on every black leader for the last twenty years, and if MLK were alive he'd be dumping on him.
Obama's speech, by the way, was O.K. But the fact that Cooper and others are comparing it to "I Have a Dream" only shows they have not a sliver of a concept of an idea how impressive a figure MLK actually was. Bottem line: Cooper will say ANYTHING to get Clinton.
I was at the March On Washington to hear the "I Have A Dream" speech. People with courage DO things other than talk. Dr King was courageous for the things he did. There were years of marches, prison, humiliation.
The speech encouraged a new identity to those who listened and were moved. Dr King tried to teach us to judge one another on the basis of character - not skin color. I do not vote based on skin color.
After Dr King was assassinated, those that followed turned away from non violence into a black separatist movement - Black Nationalism.
That turning away from the discipline of non violence is one of the keys to everything happening now
Unlike the unelected spokesmen of great causes, Obama has taken it upon himself to run for office with a serious, well tempered campaign. He is not tone deaf as the Clintons appear to be.He doesn't simply talk about feeling our pain, as Bill Clinton did and Hillary does so unconvincingly to the majority of Democratic and Republican voters.
The years of "doing things" will be Obama's true test, and that test will be on display from day one through the entire eight years of his administration.
A well-written, thoughtful piece.
It accurately describes how I, a middle-aged, dyed-in-the wool Democrat slowly morphed into an Obama supporter.
Again, thanks.
Sandra
No, instead the 60s somethings are not thinking that Obama is a saint but a bit better connected to what a President can lend to move this country back into a positive direction. Clinton and McCain represent the stagnant, corrupt and Byzantine nature of Beltway power games. This is what this election is about.