Obama, Voice Of The Grups?
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For voters younger than he, Obama is the closest they’ve ever had to a political leader of their own generation….And for the next-older cohort, at least the self-conscious ones who tend to dominate the cultural definition of any generation, Obama flatters their driving desire to imagine themselves forever young. He’s technically a baby-boomer, but still comes across as a boy wonder, which allows people in their fifties to feel reassured that they’re not yet decrepit. Plus if all the kids love him and we also love him, that means we’re still kinda sorta youthful ourselves, right? It’s related to the generation-gaplessness that modern parents enjoy feeling when they and their children watch Stephen Colbert together, and listen to the same music (Feist!) on their identical iPods. ~Kurt Andersen
James should have a field day with this paragraph alone, but before he pounces I would make a few points. First, there has always been an element of Boomer wish-fulfillment in Obama’s candidacy, since liberals of that generation may still remember the 1960s as the era when their cause was prematurely snuffed out and they see Obama as the revival of something similar to what they saw in the Kennedys and so on. Andersen has described another important part of Obama boosterism, which has been confirmed in the past by anecdotes of superdelegates being swayed by their children’s enthusiasm for the candidate, and this is an incessant need for Boomers to retain the appearance of being hip and an equally powerful drive among the “grups” (or “gruppies”) to avoid acknowledging as much as possible that they are, in fact, now in their thirties and even forties. The “Obama Generation” spans generations, since successive generations are engaged in ongoing denial that they are actually ageing, but it relies heavily on the “grups” and the youngest voters.
Notably, when Obama loses large numbers of the thirtysomething set, this coincides with a significant loss of overall support, as polling from Nevada has shown. Meanwhile, in the states where Obama is less popular overall the youngest cohorts are not necessarily more supportive than their elders, but may be less so, at which point some of his greatest reserves are to be found among the Boomers. That doesn’t mean that most Boomers back him, but that their levels of support are more consistent from state to state than among other generations and they are more constant over time. Obamaism may be a fad for the young, but for a certain kind of Boomer it is a long-deferred dream come true.
Filed under: politics
Well, hurrah for Charles Martel, Edith Piaf, Jeanne Moreau and Stefan Grappelli!
When it comes to Sartre, Althusser, Foucault, Jean Genet and their ilk, I much prefer Ireland.
Obama is on the fairly late side of the boomers. The boomer generation was born between 46-64. Obama was born in 61. Obama was still a kid during Vietnam. Heck, Obama didn’t turn 18 until Carter was president. Put another way, Bill Clinton was 15 when Obama was born. I just don’t see Obama being classified as a Boomer hope. I also see no polling evidence of Obama strength in the post 50 crowd.
Of course he doesn’t poll well when running against older rivals. That’s not what I’m saying. Everyone knows that older voters are generally less likely to vote for him–I’m talking about the older voters who do support him. If you look at where Obama’s support is softest, I think you will find that it is among these 30-39 year olds, but that is also one of the groups where he polls best at first. Most Boomers don’t support him, as I said above, but those who do are, like Andersen, absolutely steadfast and zealous. He is the personification of what a certain kind of Boomers, including a lot of journalists, wants in its politicians, or at least he seems to be that. I was trying to get at what unites Obama’s fans across generations, and I think it is the attitude typified by the grup that both younger voters and certain Boomers also embrace.
This is really pretty funny. I’m 50, so Obama is just three years younger than me. Hardly a youth in my eyes. I took to him even before he announced his candidacy, and I went for him very early on. My college-age sons, however, were for Edwards. It was I who helped convince them that Obama was the man, not the other way around.
To me, Obama represents what I wanted my fellow boomers to be, but weren’t. He’s what I would have liked Bill Clinton to be, but Bill was so filled with narciissism he couldn’t do it. I was happy to have Clinton when he came along – anything that could keep the Republicans out of power for a while – and while there were plenty of things I liked about him, he was never close to my ideal. There was plenty of scummy things about him, and he couldn’t really accomplish much other than keep the economy pumping. Obama, on the other hand, represents the kind of guy I had always hoped my generation could produce. It doesn’t matter if he’s a few years younger or a few years older, he’s my generation, more than Clinton is certainly. Yes, there’s a bit of wish-fulfillment going on, but it’s got nothing to do with eternal youth. It has more to do with realizing in middle age the dreams I always had as a youth, but thought were out of reach. I had thought I had to compromise and settle for Clintons and their narcissism. When Obama came along I thought, hot damn, I don’t have to compromise anymore. Here’s a guy who represents, geneally speaking, the kind of sensibility I want to see promoted in the world.
Anyway, thought you might like to know what people of my generation actually feel about Obama. These psychological projections of yours just don’t cut the mustard. I’m not surprised – you’re of a different generation. But don’t imagine that we boomers want to be like you. I’m done being young, and it’s fine with me that I won’t be anymore. We just want our own youthful dreams realized, and Obama seems to us to be the vehicle for that happening, in the political world at least. Thought you might be able to use that observation to set you straight about what people of my age find attractive in Obama.