I got a similar impression during Barack Obama's speech in Springfield that I first thought about when reading his book. He has a post-boomer perspective. I don't mean that he's going to ignore baby boomer issues. A recent post Rich Miller made on the Capitol Fax Blog got to the issue when he wrote:
First of all, why is it that the Baby Boomers have to run everything through the prism of their youth? Why does everything have to relate back to that convention, or McGovern, or Woodstock or whatever?Exactly! Its easy to not notice just how much of our political discourse is viewed through the Boomer's prism.
I'll take an example from the 2004 election. A lot of people were amazed at how much media coverage was given to the Swift-Boat Veterans group that attacked John Kerry's honorable service to our country, long after it had been conclusively shown that they were liars with no credibility. I was present for an important episode of that saga that should have gotten more press coverage than it did.
The founder of the Swift-Boaters group, John O'Neill, spoke at the City Club of Chicago to peddle his book trashing Kerry. This time, several veterans who served with Kerry (no one in the swift-boat liars group served on a boat with him) showed up to confront O'Neill. I saw that O'Neill is an amazing liar and more importantly, I witnessed the bitterness between some of the veterans present. That event, and speaking to some of those veterans, opened my eyes to what it was all about.
O'Neill and his group didn't know or care what Kerry did in Vietnam. They hated him for what he said when he came home. O'Neill acted as Nixon's attack dog against Kerry in the 70's and he was doing the same thing today. All of it happened because Kerry dared to speak his mind about the war. The whole episode was about playing out old grudges that had been festering for decades. It was then that I realized how many Americans, especially some Vietnam veterans, are still angry about the actions of Kerry and others who opposed the Vietnam war. I wish someone in the media had explained that to those of us under 30 who didn't realize what was really going on.
At a press conference held by the campaign, the veterans who served with Kerry attempted to correct the record. They were ignored by the so-called liberal media. What bothered me more were the Iraq War veterans who spoke at that same press conference that were also ignored by the media.
During that campaign, I met more than a few Iraq War veterans opposed to the war who had a lot to say about what they saw happen there, including the fraudulent and wasteful ways money was being thrown at Halliburton and other private contractors. Reporting smears about what happened in Vietnam over 30 years ago was more important to the national press. It was sad to see a soldier show so much courage by speaking out and yet have it be for nothing because the press decided that reporting uncomfortable facts about Iraq wasn't newsworthy.
That event also made me realize why we had to suffer through so much talk about what Clinton, Bush, Gore and everybody else did during the 60's. Its part of figuring out what stereotyped group someone belonged to back in the day. The boomers are still fighting the same old arguments between hippies and "law and order" types. Someone is either for "free love" or "family values." You must either believe in "big government" or "self-reliance." These old arguments don't have relevance or meaning to young people because they don't' have anything to do with today's world.
Some of us post-boomers were raised by hippie parents who got regular jobs and moved to the suburbs. We saw Bill Clinton reduce the size of government and reform welfare, while Reagan and Bush dramatically increased federal spending. Leaders who talk about "family values," like Jerry Falwell and Ted Haggard have become synonymous with bigotry and hypocrisy. The old ways of looking at things don't apply to the younger generations.
I would just love to finally see the first Presidential campaign in 16 years that isn't about what someone did during the 60's. Obama connects with young voters because he isn't making the arguments of yesterday. He doesn't speak through the prism of old battles that post-boomers had no part in. It's refreshing, to say the least.