Thursday, July 10, 2008

BHO vs HRC -- this is what happened

I'm cherry picking here from Sara Robinson. This is the jusiest part of another inciteful post. Comments thread is pretty good, too.

The real conflict that defined the choice between Hillary and Obama wasn't about melanin content or X chromosome status. It was about a generational hand-off of power -- a demographic shift that Obama saw coming, and Hillary did not.
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Bring on the flamethrowers, but I'm going to say it out loud: Most of America under 50 is sick to tears of the way Boomers -- both left and right -- do politics. They're fed up with that confrontational eat-shit Nixonland political style that's defined everything for 40 years. It's rigid and polarizing and hostile to compromise, and the country is suffering mightily because it's paralyzed us so thoroughly. Hell, even the GOPpers are over it: they're reaching back to a Silent generation candidate rather than put up another Boomer. (If anyone uses the word "Vietnam" between now and November, violence may ensue. In fact: I'll quite cheerfully hurl the first brick myself.)

Obama, standing on the cusp of Gen X himself, looked at the numbers; and he carefully crafted his campaign to appeal to this emerging group, who see far more clearly what's not getting done, and don't have a lot of patience with anyone who seems likely to let their personal pursuit of power get in the way of getting the country back on track. They're done with Nixon, Reagan, Bushes, and yes, both Clintons, too.

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