generation gap in politics?

[JoB]

The february 18, 2008 issue of Newsweek snagged me this weekend and left me with some pretty interesting questions… i found an article titled “he’s one of us now” about the boomers versus the millennials and Obama particularly interesting.

In his article Andrew Romano cites Morley Winograd and Michael D Hais (Millenial Makeover: Myspace, Youtube and the future of American Politics) on the political differences between boomers (Hillary) and millenials (Obama, tho his age would still make him a boomer… his message is millenial )…

millenials “aren’t confrontational or combative, the way Boomers (whose generational mantra was ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30’) have been.” Instead millenials belong to what social scientist William Strauss calls a “civic genertion”, drawn to issues of self, culture and morals.”

i have to comment, if this is actually true, we mothers of the 60s did a whole lot better job than i thought we did:)

He goes on to talk about how millenials reject their parent’s excesses and prefer to reform institutions from within .. team players…building consensus.

He says millenials are far more optomistic than boomers about the possibility of change… and cites a survey that found fewer millenials felt that after the election Washington would still be business as usual than boomers.

another comment… Duh… on the optimistic thing.. at least as he defined it with his citation. Of course boomers who have heard these campaign promises before are less willing to believe that real change is possible. We have experienced a great deal of change… but very little of it came as the result of campaign promises.

My first question is can we accept his premise about Obama’s message being millenial…

and second, do we accept the stated definition of millenial?

and if we do accept the definition, why isn’t Hillary considered millenial in spite of her boomer age…

after all, this definition of millenial is really a definition of the feminine perspective.

that ought to be enough to start some really interesting conversation:)

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[Ken]

The problem is a bit different from the one you thought.

The real issue here is taking the punditocracy seriously when they are just whipping up something to meet a deadline. Blaming “Hippies” for anything and everything is institutional.

Hillary does not have an automatic lock on boomers, unless you count those over 75 as boomers. That is the only age demographic that has held steady across all the states.

Obama might be inspiring the young and bringing back the cynical but a hard and fast divide or generational split exist only in the minds of those pundits who have been seriously and consistently wrong about every issue, large and small for the past 10 years.

And the references to myspace and facebook are absurd. I block both of them from my network and make a fair amount of cash repairing and cleaning the various infestations epidemic on both.

Sure I am an old fart but I don’t avoid bubbling pits of stupid because I don’t know how to use them. I avoid them because I do know how they work and know a few of the developers that make serious coin selling gaudy themes to those who cannot be bothered to understand how much of their lives they are exposing.

BTW if anyone with a second life account needs custom items written, I have a friend who writes custom vehicles for cash :)

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[JoB]

LOL.. ken, you make my day.

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[JoB]

perhaps common sense is why those under 30 were right not to trust us old farts ken:)

I agree that one should be incredibly careful on the new sites that spring up such as my space… i don’t go there because i don’t want to risk contamination… not with ideas but viruses…

but i do think that there is something in this article that is worth hearing… they are exposed to a much larger world than we ever were… and there is certainly the appearance of consensus.

i can’t fault the internet community for it’s ability to get some things done that might never have had action in the old fashioned face to face way…

i certainly hope that the change they observe is at least in part real.

but i wonder if all this instant access and instant gratification doesn’t create a new kind of naitivity (spelling?) of it’s own that is bound to run into the same rock wall our generation did..

desiring change is good. working for change is better. having the patience to see that change takes time is best.

at least, from this old farts perspective:)

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[Anonymous]

You really like to call yourself an old fart, huh?? How old are you??? Geez!!

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[Anonymous]

JoB: Didn’t mean to offend you with my last comment above, but why do you keep referring yourself as an old fart??

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[JoB]

because i am an old fart and proud of it.

i earned every year.

i paid attention to everything that happened to me… and i learned from it.

and i don’t mind sharing my experience and perspective.

thus.. old fart.

And i am not yet 60.. tho i won’t be saying that long.

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[Anonymous]

Your only 10 year older than I am, and I certainly don’t think of myself as an old fart! I do applaud you for being on this forum, we can’t get my in-laws online they are afraid, my Mother was also afraid. But get this. my 96 old year Grandmother was all for the Internet!!!

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[Ken]

I am in my 50’s :)

And yet those “kids these days” that many think of as so tech savvy because they have a myspace page, have to pay me to fix their computer or recover their data.

That might be one reason why I get a kick out of the suggestion that “millennials” are so in tune with the “new media”. Some of them are. But I find them to be just as rare as they are in any other generation. I learned a lot about BGP routing from a then 19 year old in the late 90’s. He got hired by google in 2000 and vested his stock options before they went public. Maybe he will hire me when he starts his own company :)

For example, on Daily Kos, the political blog the corporate media keep describing as “those kids on the blogs” the majority of users (who respond to a poll) are between 35 and 60 with 9% between 60 and 90.

The reason I describe myself as an old fart is because I still go out into the world and try occasionally to get a real job and get depressed by the incredulity of the 20 something HR drones I have to deal with, who seem to think I cannot possibly have all the experience on the resume or that my experience could have any relevance in the current job market.

Still, I get called in to fix stuff the new college degree crowd can’t figure out.

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[JoB]

ken.. this is exactly why i question the “rhetoric”… nobody seems to know what it is actually built on.. and often it isn’t what it appears to be.

but then the old fart status we have earned carries with it a lot of experience with bull, doesn’t it:) even bull backed by statistics…

as for all that hot shot expertise… i have come to realize that expertise is often shallow. Yes, they have learned in many cases to manipulate the top layer of technology very well… but ask them what lays beneath it… the foundation.. and they are lost.

that’s what us old farts are for.. foundations:) we understand them because we helped lay them.

i like being an old fart.

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[Erik]

I saw an interesting piece on the MSM last night about memory. They asked simple questions (How old is your mom? etc.) to two groups of people…over 60 and under 30. The over 60 group did much better. They asked one of the youngsters where their memory went and they pointed to their cellphone.

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[JoB]

LOL…those cell phones are dangerous.

hubby uses his to access the internet and fact check me. AARGH!!! and he is no sweet young thing either:)

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[charlabob]

When I was young, I thought experience was highly overrated. Now that I’m a lot less than young, I still think it is. :-) A combination of experience, instinct, street smarts, and mostly a savage grasp of the obvious is what’s needed.

I realize that part of the reason I’m more suspicious of the Clinton crowd than the Obama crowd, and often suspect them of playing with the truth, is that, with all their experience, they should know better. For example, if I had the experience of being burned by hiring David Gergen and Dick Morris I certainly wouldn’t have hired Mark Penn.

As this campaign has unfolded, it’s clear that both Obama and Clinton appeal to all generations — the difference is in point of view, attitude, etc. So the original Newsweek article is interesting but, probably, irrelevant to what’s going on now.

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[JoB]

charla…

I have to make a case for experience.

when i was young.. i believed what i read. I believed in sweeping generalizations. i believed in the big picture. i believed that i could learn all i needed to know from other people’s mistakes.

As i grew older…

i found that what i read wasn’t always the truth and that i would have to dig deeper into the story before i had enough information to judge the truth..

i found that sweeping generalizations sweep all the data that doesn’t fit under the rug… and sometimes the exceptions to the rule tell you more than the rule…

i found that the big picture is really more like a digital screen image.. it is made of up all these little pixels.. and if the pixels are out of focus.. so is the big picture…

i learned that although you can learn from other people’s mistakes.. you don’t really understand the process until you make your own…

You learn by being there and doing.. and mostly you learn what it takes to succeed by being the one who has to pick up the pieces when your great idea turns out to be a real clunker… or.. you just can’t sell it.

Experience does matter. It is what teaches us that it is not enough to talk about education and impose some set of standards that children must reach to graduate (no child left behind)..

You have to ask why education is not working. You have to fund prenatal programs so children are healthy when born. You have to fund nutrition programs and health care so those children grow healthy and strong. You have to fund child care and preshcool programs so all children enter the educational system at as close to the the same level as you can provide. You have to inspire teachers and fund schools. You have to provide after school programs and tutoring so that those children have a structured environment in which to succeed at school. You have to feed those who aren’t being fed at home so that they have the nutrition necessary for healthy brain growth throughout childhood. You have to invest in the children who can then benefit from the school system.

That’s the difference between the slogan No child left behind.. and not leaving children behind.

That’s just one example… but i think it is a good one.

And i think this more than anything speaks to why experience might matter… and why Clinton has such a strong base among the poor. Those little details mean the difference between life and death for them… and i mean that literally.

So,, you might ask yourself about Obama’s interest in the pixels that make up the bigger picture. We have just had an 8 year example of a president who wasn’t interested in those details… and the results aren’t pretty.

after my guests leave… i will try to back and find a blog post that spoke to that… (remind me) it was written by a black woman from Chicago… but her bottom line was that it was not enough to represent people of color in the big picture.. it was more important what he had actually managed to do for his own people… and she wasn’t so impressed… not even with his record as her senator.

you should take a look at what Senator Obama actually managed to do for the people of Illinois… not just the businesses of Illinois. I think what you find will surprise you.

On the other hand.. i am impressed about what Clinton has managed to do for women and children and i think she she would represent us in the big picture by paying attention to all of those little details. She doesn’t think it is enough to be a woman to get our votes, she believes she has to show us what she is willing to do for us as individuals.

We are so focused on the campaign we seem to have forgotten that the person we elect will have a job to do when they arrive.

It’s all well and good to say that Obama is a bright man and he will have plenty of help.. but the help you refer to are those democrats who you say haven’t done much for you so far.

what will change that?

That is a question i can’t answer.. and the more i learn about what Obama has actually done as opposed to what his rhetoric is.. the more i question.

If we compare him to Kennedy.. where is his Bobby?

If we compare him to Martin Luther King.. where is his Johnson?

I think these are the kinds of questions that experience leads us to ask…

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[Jerald]

I don’t want to know where his Johnson is. That’s too personal for me.

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[JanS]

Jerald….thank you for that laugh…well, I suppose I should thank JoB, too >:o)

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