Baby Boomers Rule

I only recently understood what the message of "change" signifies in this election and why only one candidate--the youngest--gets to send it. Change, which is true of any election in which the incumbent cannot stand for re-election, means a generational change in this context. Baby Boomers are being given notice.

This seems an unfair and premature dismissal from political power. After all, if the previous generation was the "greatest" we definitely rank as the "largest", as well as the most "boisterous" and "opinionated." We're definitely not done yet. We deserve more time at the top.

The "Greatest Generation", which served during WWII, gave America several presidents, from JFK in 1960 to George HW Bush in 1988. For thirty years one generation ruled this country and as great as the generation may have been, that succession of presidents had mixed results--a major war, several skirmishes, a smattering of scandals, and enough economic ups and downs for a new ride at Disney World.

For three decades, Baby Boomers attended schools, protested wars, submitted to the brutal rehabilitation of "going straight", went to work in the real world, raised families and waited patiently for our collective turn to elect our presidents and test once and for all if our generation and its elected leaders would do better than their predecessors.

Finally, we saw Bill Clinton occupy the White House. Our first Baby Boomer in the Oval Office 0penly expressed his generational bent. He appeared on late night TV wearing shades and blowing a sax, crisscrossed the country in a bus like a rock star, consumed fast food, and had extramarital sex. But if Bill Clinton dabbled in the Dionysian excesses of the post-war generation, his first lady, Hillary, channeled a more sober, idealistic vision of the 60s--the political activist working within the system to make a difference--Joan Baez, not Janis Joplin.

It has often been suggested of the Clintons that they are avatars of their generation--political idealists and moral relativists. They are brilliant, charming, and tenacious, but ruthless and self-absorbed. However, much of the opprobrium the Clintons have endured is not due to their foibles but to anti-Boomer backlash. In some quarters, Boomers will never be forgiven for opposing the Vietnam War, regardless how misguided it was; for enjoying drugs other than alcohol; and for accepting or practicing a broader range of social behaviors than any previous generation. The Clintons have been scapegoated for the perceived sins of their generation.

The Clintons had their share of political scandal, much of it fabricated by their political enemies but if the Clinton administration had flaws, it was also effective. Despite a staunch and frequently virulent Republican opposition, the Clintons presided over an era of prosperity, innovation, fiscal responsibility, and peace.

George Bush, a conservative and anti-intellectual counterpart to the Clintons, is the second Baby Boomer in the White House. A former athlete and alcoholic, George W. Bush was packaged as a new political prototype--the compassionate conservative. He proved himself to be a pragmatic governor, and presented himself to the electorate as a "regular guy", humble despite his wealth and pedigree, relaxed in demeanor and gifted with great people skills.

President Bush has also demonstrated invincible convictions and insufficient patience to master the details to support them. He represents the Young Republican Baby Boomers who were pro-war, clean cut and proud to be Okies from Muskogee--in short, the junior varsity Silent Majority. They wore red-white-and-blue armbands in school and were fond of shouting, "Love it or leave it" at the ungrateful, Commie-influenced, anti-war students with black armbands.

Now, after having two Boomers as president, millions of voters in the Democratic primaries have expressed an urgency for change, which is a euphemism for a generational take-over. The change-cravers want to usurp the Baby Boomers, who have ruled the U.S. for a mere 16 years. It is sizing up to be a clash of demographics.

The new millennium liberals are tired of the ethos in which the aging Baby Boomers cut and lost our political teeth. They wish to escape the dialectic of the '60s, the burden of taking sides, the anxious conflict of opposing ideologies. They seek a moratorium on the lore of hard-fought battles, when hundreds of thousands marched together, yet could not end a war. They embrace hope but not the torment and hardship that make a hope "a thing with feathers." They pursue an end to the polarization that results when an issue is so fraught that it splits a society in half; they believe it is possible for the poles to meet at the equator. They want us to come together without knowing who we are or what it means to unite in a chaotic, multi-layered, multi-scheduled society. Unite around what?

Barack Obama is the first presidential candidate to represent the post-Baby Boomer generation that matured in the Reagan revolution. He articulates a desire to move way from the dichotomies that characterized the '60s-- feminists/chauvinists; pro-war/anti-war; white/black; young/old. This yearning to transcend society's divisions is a conceptual blunder. Dualities are not of the past, but immutable and inescapable units of reality, as hard-wired as gender, race, class, conflict. The differences we are enjoined to overcome are not political but biological and cultural in nature. We can no more overcome them than we can cease to be human.

Baby Boomers understand the social dialectics probably better than any generation before or since. We clashed with our parents only to endure thirty years of their governance. For three decades our destiny was in the portfolio of a generation that neither understood nor appreciated our unique historical place and perspective. We have now only had power for half of that time.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain both represent the Baby Boomers. McCain may be a little older, but he is an honorary Boomer since he served in Vietnam and is part of the 60s conversation . Hillary Clinton is a Baby Boomer through and through.

Regardless who the candidates are come November, we will probably elect a president who represents the "Largest, Loudest, Most Innovative Generation." Others may stand for change. The Boomers have the math.