I have yet to find any commentator, here or anywhere else, who has put their finger on why Obama is responding with people, while Clinton is not, especially amoung younger voters. It's NOT about race or sex, who's had it harder in overcoming various obstacles in their way, but it's about GENERATIONS.

We've had 4 terms of baby boomers in the White House slashing and burning the country with the politics of division. Their generation was defined by the Vietnam War, one of the most divisive and corrosive issues of our modern era. Its aftermath was of an America that was fundmentally divided into "liberals" and "conservatives" who could not meet in the center, an America that gave forth a generation of politicians who valued scathing personal attacks as much as they valued debating an issue. Politicians who valued winning for their side more than they valued what was good for America. Looking back, even the great issues of earlier times have not left such a division in america (for example, look at the fight for civil rights, which was incredibly divisive at the time. While racism is certainly not "beaten" in this country by a long shot, the idea of institutional racism that existed in the South at that time is utterly discredited, and a politician who advocate a return to that era would be quick to find themselves out of a job).

In contrast, Obama was born in 1961, and while the exact moment of the beginning of Generation X can be disputed, I personally think (and it's reflected in Obama's outlook) that 1961 was the beginning of my generation (I was born in 1966). While it is easy to overgeneralize about shared traits among a generation, I see my generation as a very practical one, as I think Obama does. The boomers fought over ideology and we are now forced to come in and clean up their messes, without regards for ideology, but with a clear practical eye for finding solutions regardless of ideology. There are a number of generational factors that play into this, but we were the first generation to typically have 2 parents working or even one single parent (e.g. Obama) and we had, as fairly young children, to learn to take care of ourselves, instead of coming home to find mom baking a pie in the Cleaver households of the boomers.

What my generation and gen y'ers are responding in Obama is the idea that here is a politician who isn't reliant on strict ideology, but someone with an open, intelligent mind, who can inspire us to solve our problems. He is, to put it simply, our Kennedy the greatest generation was forged by WW2 into a generation that had the clear ability to simply get things done. Kennedy challenged them to put a man on the moon by the end of the 60's and they just got it done. I think our geberations are ready to listen to Obama and just "get it done" - fix the country, fix the world, mix red and blue together. All the politicians are talking about "change" but it's not just about change, it's about having hope so that you can roll up your shirt sleeves and just get it done.

errol

I do have a quick mea culpa - I just read Andrew Sullivan's piece on Barack Obama in The Atlantic <link> and it captures, with utter eloquence, my crude points. Anyone and everyone should go read this thoughtful, truly important article.

errol

Neither race, NOR sex, NOR generations, NOR liberal vs. conservative.... Obama, Hillary, Edwards and every other Republocrat are fishing for money. They have all learned from the "master bator" himself, Bill Clinton, that it is so much easier to prostitute yourself to the bankers and the scam artists who run the country than it is to actually change anything. Bill Clinton had a terrific opportunity to undo years of damage inflicted upon the country by Bush, Reagan and Nixon. He could have struck a blow at the Pentagon; he could have told the oil companies to eat shit; he could have redirected the Justice Department; he could have killed zionism; he could have insisted that the World Court arrest Ratko Mladic; he could have lifted the Cuban trade embargo.... In short, he could have acted as an old-time, back-to-basics Democrat, the kind of Johnsonian Democrat who made his mark giving lesser mortals the Johnsonian treatment, and then telling them to like it or lump it. But what did Bill do? He bargained, pardoned, fucked and flummoxed his way to infamy by avoiding anything that required the smallest bit of backbone. With Spineless Bill, the image and the bank account took precedence. After Bill, the Democratic party fell into the hands of the bankers on the DNC, the finest group of politicians money can buy. And nothing has changed since then except the names of the players. Hillary, Obama and the rest of the team have exhausted themselves (and us) with their hyperbole, bombast and nonsense. Is it any wonder that those of us who remember the sixties, the seventies and Jimmy Carter are spending our time doubled over in laughter whenever one of them opens his (or her) mouth? Wake us up when a real candidate appears.