Boomers in the White House (Or: How I guessed wrong)

Caveat Lector. Reader, beware! In 1980 I confidently predicted that President Carter would narrow defeat Ronald Reagan. In 1992 I was sure that President George H.W. Bush would defeat little known Bill Clinton. In 2000 it was obvious that Al Gore would win over George W. Bush. (On that one I was right, except that…well, you know…) So I’ve given up on predicting presidential contests, even primaries. By the time you read this Obama will probably be the prohibitive favorite, or even the nominal nominee of the Democratic Party (whoops, poor Obama, I’ve just made a prediction!). The rules of the game are that I can’t endorse, and I wouldn’t, but I can comment in the comment section of this paper, and so I will.

Those who voted in the Democratic Primary earlier this month were purportedly given a choice between style (Obama) and substance (Clinton). But as Barbara Fields alluded last week, there might be more than that; we were given a choice between my generation and the next, and for those of us in my age-range we can compare to those in our parents’ generation.

My parents’ generation was represented by Kennedy and Nixon, the one the golden boy of change, the other an exemplar of suspicion and trickery; Ford and Carter are of their generation too, both men of honor, neither up to the job; Reagan was a throwback, the front man for those who wanted ever since its inception to undo the New Deal. Then after H.W. Bush it was my generation’s turn to produce presidents. We gave you Clinton and Bush, both draft evaders, the former a womanizer whose indiscretions cost his party its hold of congress and later the presidency. The latter is a failed example of a puppet king who succeeded in doing his masters’ task, lowering their taxes, and then thought he could assume the mantle of leadership by creating an unnecessary war, and in so doing has alienated 70% of the country.

My generation was the product of the sexual revolution (thanks to Hugh Heffner, et al.) and rock and roll—that most mindless of music which has now further degenerated into the non-music of racial slur, misogamy and gangstas. We were babied by our doting parents who had survived the Great Depression and the Second World War, determined that we should have what they had not, and we appreciated it. But if Clinton and Bush are our representative presidents, we have failed to live up to our enormous potential.

Now another Clinton is running for president. At first she seemed to be the prohibitive favorite, the all but anointed champion of her party, the heir presumptive to her husband’s popularity. She was thought of as inevitable. And she was. Until the voters had their say. First in Iowa, then in South Carolina, then not able to eliminate her rival on Super Tuesday she suffered a string of defeats until the March 4th contests which are before me, but by the time you read these words you will know whether she was able to survive as a viable candidate, or not. Yes, she’s strong on policy, but she’s of my generation, and therefore I think that she’ll lose; I think the American public has had enough of us baby-boomers whose time in office was brief (16 years) but perhaps too long.

Obama on the other hand seems to have surmounted the twin trials of being inexperienced and half African. He is reputed to be a Manchurian Candidate, a crypto Muslim who will betray America and Israel. It’s nonsense, of course, but such are the tactics of conservatives who fear that he will defeat whomsoever the Republicans put up—whether it be the aged war hero or the amusing creationist.

As a people we seem at this writing to be at the tipping point. Should we give one more chance to the old discredited generation, or take a blind leap of faith towards the new? Not to belabor the cliché, but it’s the same question voters were asked to resolve in 1960. Nixon the man of experience, who while the same age as Kennedy, seemed a throwback to the old, or take a chance on the less experienced visionary. Then, narrowly, we looked forward. Today? I think we will again. My generation has failed America in its offerings as president. I think America is looking for new hope in a new generation of mixed blood. I may be wrong. It’s happened before.


A correction: Last week quotation marks were inadvertently omitted, making it appear that I had said that I would like to ban the writings of David Duke, etc. but that we don’t do those things in America. While I agree with the sentiment, the words were not mine; I was quoting a colleague, J. S. Friedman of the College of Wooster in Ohio.