The Obama Generation Gap
Below is a private note written after Iowa by my 34-year-old son Troy, which represents the feelings of his wife Simone and countless others in their generation. Their attachment to Barack Obama is as deep as their disgust with the political establishment. The letter speaks for itself, and becomes decisive in my considerations towards this race. I think Obama has ignited a storm of hope that outweighs any concerns about his specific policies. The Obama generation is here and will not be denied.
Dear Father,I can't stand the DNC. On every major channel they have spokespeople belittling Barack's victory. They keep banging points about how the voters have a misconstrued idea of Hillary. That she's been mistakenly identified as a centrist. Or how she's being judged on her lack of charisma rather than her policies, as if she had any worth standing for, and that Barack is only a success because he appears to be more charming than her. And how exciting it will be to see her readjust her campaign, as if she hasn't already readjusted to the point of being out of whack, to let the country see the real her. It amazes me that the DNC [types are] supporting Hillarities claims that the Iowa caucus is "severly flawed", that too many people's jobs prevented them from attending, blah blah blah. Never mind the fact that record numbers turned out, almost doubling the last election's total. It amazes me that all these talking heads cannot even fathom the idea that perhaps Barack is simply a better, more qualified, more in touch candidate. Why can't they celebrate Barack's definitive victory? Why can't they celebrate the fact that a monumental shift in our nation's identity is occurring? Why can't they celebrate that for the first time in a generation young people stood up to be heard? I wish, that for one moment, these baby boomers would turn off the arrogant noise in their searching heads and listen. Look and listen to the changing fabric of this country. In the midst of dark times an incredibly beautiful spirit is awakening. A spirit that we were told about by you, our parents. A spirit that so many fought for. It was a dream for you, an idea that you almost attained before it was violently taken away. That dream has matured, it has come full circle, it walks with your children. In fact, this is no longer a dream but an actual happening. I hope you see your self in this new spirit.
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The only reason they haven't risen up in that fashion is because they aren't being drafted, but believe me, it's on their minds. The only way to win this illegal war is to draft more troops. They know that. They are reading these blogs too! My kids are 6 and 4 and I think about it all the time.
I'm 33 and I concur with your son. This is generational and I am afraid it's way over the heads of old school politicians and pundits from both sides of the aisle.
yup. it was conversations with my 22 year old son that helped me remember how I felt for a couple of months back in the spring of 1968. oh, the possibilities.
Obama has been "serving" as a Senator swept in for change and "backbone" to the republican hostage taking of Our government. Obama has been educated as a U.S.Constitutional Lawyer. Where is the metal of his change? We might revisit the "education" and traditional history of JFK before we reach for comparison's. The prolific life and strife by Joseph Kennedy Sr., first and then on to gain the insight of JFK, none the less of which his having lost the strongest member of their family's future in his older brother, Joe Jr., during WW2 and then to context JFK's own struggle, having been given over the couse of his life the last right's 4 times, and having lived through and surviving his own destiny in WW2. To compare the public's very apparent desparately hungered and pinned up longing for hopeful rhetoric from a fresh face in the political stage to any of the crusaders who through pur History has definitive moments of actions that separated them from their peers and Obama who has recieved a priviledged Law Degree from Harvard, in Constitutional Law no less, and yet while in his office he has been been deafeningly silent and glaringly absent with out fight against the Bush Administration is a naievete. To have all of these Senators and Congress serving, during arguably the most prolific destroyer of our Democracy, and not hold Obama accountable along with them in their treasonous complicity, with his Constitutional Law "prowess"?, and give him more than a pass but to pass him on to a higher degree of stus quo is irresponsible and continues a public system of denial of accountability. He has championed nothing, won No Supreme Court decisions, lingered for hours in fillibuster, with one word spoken against this tyranny, much less filled the chambers with with eloquence and stalworth deferrence for us. He has done NOTHING to prosecute and to save us during the process of the Bush Administration.
Like an otherwise captivating and entertaining film during which a technical error (or ringing cell phone) is made that so interrupts the film as to completely distract from whatever beautiful art is on the screen; this letter baffles me. I couldn't get past the first couple lines because the target of your son's anger is nonsensical. I'm an elected member of the DNC from Texas - each elected member speaks for him or herself, but when your son says, "...they have spokespeople..." I just can not figure out what he is talking about.
One DNC member among the very diverse body might have been on tv somewhere and said something, but the DNC's spokespeople don't take sides in the primary.
I can comprehend your son's excitement to see something in politics that he finds refreshing; I can understand that he would be frustrated by people he views as obsolete-minded. What I can not understand is how you can post an entire letter in which he repeatedly says, "Why can't they..." when he has clearly misidentified who "they" are.
Perhaps they were Republicans or employees of the campaign they were defending.
Forgive me, Mr. Hayden, if I don't click that little "heart" button at the top of the page to follow your future posts.
to some extent this letter may be true, though i think the "anti-hillary" sentiment has been a bit overstated. much like most of our respective generations, my parents, my sister and I do disagree about which democratic candidate would be best, but on the whole we basically like all of them.
and THAT is saying something.
When Hayden's daughter says, "I can't stand the DNC," I suspect she meant "DLC" -- the Democratic Leadership Council, the influential centrist organization which has been chaired, among others, by Bill Clinton and Joe Lieberman.
The "DNC" -- the Democratic National Committee -- has been under the leadership of Howard Dean since 2005. Dean is famous for championing "the Democratic wing of the Democratic party," a jab at the DLC, which has dominated the Democratic Party since the Clinton presidency.
I just came back to supporting Obama and I'm pre-Obama generation. He had hurt and angered me over McCurkin, and if Huckabee hadn't won Iowa, I probably wouldn't have put aside my anger. I would support the devil him/herself to stop that AIDS hysterical NAZI.
One nice revelation was hearing Michelle Obama give a speech televised on C-SPAN(I hadn't heard her speak before.) If Obama can attract that quality a woman, he has some pretty worthwhile qualities.
WOW. How cool is that?
This is what you spoke of in April.
Thank you/all!!
Obama is an orator with style and grace, intelligence and wit, but my admiration stops short when he starts talking about invading Pakistan to look under every rock for the terrorists. Where is the anti war candidate we all wanted? When will this search for the boggie man end? What happened to diplomacy and negotiations?
Every idea the man has started with John Edwards and gradually became adopted into the Obama platform (and finally the Hillary platform). Style may look good on fifth avenue but the people that are starving and dieing need substance.
"In the midst of dark times an incredibly beautiful spirit is awakening."
These moments in history don't last forever. Just as Obama is "riding this wave" so must we, for as long as we can. And if it only means a short period in the White House where there is great possibility, that is OK...I think that Obama will accomplish much...
It's really true Mr. Hayden. I fully share your son's sentiments on the matter of this evident shift in the way the country thinks and feels. As a baby of the baby boomers, I feel as if our generation is in the process of inheriting our own JFK in Barack Obama. Any politician who can attract the youth to get involved in voting and being concerned with the pressing issues of our time deserve great praise. While our students have yet to truly rise up in the form in which you and your generation had, I certainly feel 'something' in the air.
As Troy points out, it's "a spirit that we were told about by you, our parents." It's just so true.
Barack '08
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