Generation O Gets Its Hopes Up

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Generation O Gets Its Hopes Up
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: November 7, 2008

....Only a Fugees-loving, pick-up-basketball-playing, biracial president-elect would send supporters an e-mail message on election night that said: “I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.” He signed it simply “Barack.” After all, they were close. He and his biggest fans, the generation of young adults who voted for him in record numbers, together had slogged through 21 months of campaigning. And in his moment of victory, Barack Obama shared the glow of success.

“All of this happened because of you,” the e-mail message said. “We just made history.”

With that simple “we” in millions of in-boxes, the post-baby-boomer era seems to have begun. The endless “us versus them” battles of the ’60s, over Vietnam, abortion, race and gender, at least for a moment last week, seemed as out-of-touch as a rotary phone. Of course, that was Mr. Obama’s goal. In his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” he was explicit in his desire to move beyond “the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago.”

Mr. Obama’s victory was greatly helped by his young allies. More 18- to 29-year-olds went to the polls this year than in any election since 1972 — between 21.6 million and 23.9 million, up from about 19.4 million in 2004, according to preliminary estimates from the Center for Information and Research of Civic Learning and Engagement. And 66 percent voted for Mr. Obama, according to exit polls by Edison/Mitofsky.

These young voters and those slightly older, who together may forever be known as Generation O, were the ground troops of the campaign. They opened hundreds of Obama offices in remote areas, registered voters and persuaded older relatives to take a chance on the man with the middle name Hussein.

They saw in Mr. Obama, 47, who was born at the tail end of the baby boom era, the values that sociologists and cultural critics ascribe to them. Government under Mr. Obama, they believe, would value personal disclosure and transparency in the mode of social-networking sites. Teamwork would be in fashion, along with a strict meritocracy....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/fashion/09boomers.html?pagewanted=all

[Demeter]

1. There Are Plenty of Boomers AND Their Money in Generation O

So why does the NYTimes feel obliged to indulge in yet another round of Boomer-bashing?

Boomers have been working for this day since Reagan's Mourning in America and Iran/Contra scandal and the Iranian hostage election, Gingrich's Contract on America, Bushwa, hell, some have been working since the Long Hot Summers of Assasinations 1963-68.

Maybe if they hired some writers with gravitas and a sense of history...?

My 72 year old choir director was sending every penny she had to Obama and the Democrats, as she does every election. Generation O is a state of mind and a state of grace.

[bemildred]

2. We are like Haiti.

We were disobedient and we kicked their asses, we will never be forgiven.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. That wasn't my favorite part of the piece either. Boomers raised GenY...

and if that generation gives us hope -- which I think it does -- it seems Boomers deserve credit, not scorn. Vietnam was a national trauma in which many young lives were lost. It's understandable to me that healing from those days would take a long time.

[Skittles]

4. may I remind Mr. Cave a LOT of us Boomers voted for Barack

and that BARACK OBAMA IS A BOOMER - yes INDEED