Wednesday, November 05, 2008

My thanks to the Millennials

I first noticed the brilliance of Barack Obama’s campaign when I was looking up Hanover College on the Internet. I believe it was on the U.S. News college rankings website. When I pulled up the Hanover College page, there was an ad for Barack Obama, telling prospective Indiana students that there was only one day left to register for the primary.

My son, then a senior at Elkhart Memorial High School, voted for Obama in the primary, as did many of his classmates. Obama nearly won that primary. Hillary Clinton’s Pyrrhic victory in Indiana, coupled with her huge loss in North Carolina the same day, sealed the nomination for Obama. While Obama put together a vast coalition, the Millennial Generation--those between 18 and 30--was crucial to his victory.

Thirty-six years ago, another insurgent Democrat was counting on another huge generation to put him into the White House. He was, of course, George McGovern, and the generation was mine. I voted for him in 1972, but so many of my fellow Baby Boomers failed even to register, let alone vote.

The ‘72 campaign also occurred at a time when we were fighting an unpopular war and when the administration in power was trampling on the Bill of Rights. But the McGovern campaign (though not McGovern himself) spent much political capital righting past wrongs against fellow Democrats. Perhaps Richard J. Daley deserved to be thrown out of the Democratic Convention, but that one act cost McGovern Illinois.

McGovern gave his beautiful “Come Home, America” acceptance speech at around three in the morning, thanks to his supporters’ petty squabbles on the convention floor. Of course, he has to take responsibility for failing to control his enthusiastic, but vindictive, adherents. His failure to vet his first vice presidential choice, Thomas Eagleton, cost him dearly, in those days when clinical depression was far less understood. And his campaign was so tightly focused on opposition to the war that when Henry Kissinger announced that peace was at hand, McGovern had lost his main issue. The threat of being drafted to fight in Southeast Asia had been lifted; Richard Nixon coasted to a landslide victory.

Barack Obama was against the Iraq war, but General David Petraeus’s brilliant strategy of co-opting the Sunni militias and drastically reducing the violence in that war did not put an end to the Obama message. He did not depend on the antiwar issue, but talked as much about the economy, the environment, and America's role in the world as a whole, that his candidacy did not implode. His campaign had the benefit of Hillary Clinton’s endorsement. The prediction that her supporters would defect to the Republicans, widely touted, did not come true. (John McCain’s patronizing selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate surely hurt him with former Clinton backers.) In contrast, the 1972 credentials fight between McGovern and Hubert Humphrey was still smoldering in November.

But Obama’s greatest strength, through the whole campaign, was his unrelenting optimism and message of hope. It is was the strength of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John and Robert Kennedy. It connected with so many of us from every generation. And it brought a great new generation to the polls in large numbers. The Millennials did what we Boomers could not do: elect an insurgent Democrat to the White House.

9 comments:

Lisa said...

The voter turnout among the 18-24 age group was just astonishing. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.

Charles Gramlich said...

People like hope.

Bart Treuren said...

as a european my first inclination was to hope that hillary would clinch the nomination but by may i understood that something phenomenal was starting to happen, as time passed i came to realise that one person might be able to transcend the mundane politicking and the republican induced "malaise"...

i only experienced the 1972 election tangentially (i was 12 at the time) but can still remember the rancour and confusion of a troubled era resonating at all levels around the world...

thanks for sharing these insights :-))

steve on the slow train said...

Lisa--I thought the young people would come through this time. I guess it's because of my three children in that age group. My son-in-law, who's an Indian citizen, was also enthusiastic for Obama.

Charles--That's true. Sometimes it's all we have left.

Bart--Hillary would have waged a strong campaign, and probably would have defeated McCain.

In 1972 I worked for a senatorial campaign (Dick Clark of Iowa), who defeated a Republican incumbent. Except for McGovern, Democrats did quite well that year. It was a troubled era, as you say.

Anonymous said...

. . . and Indiana and Virginia, our respective states, both going for a Democrat for the first time since LBJ. I thought of Indiana as soon as I heard Pennsylvania declared so early -- I figured he'd sweep clear through Illinois when I heard that.

steve on the slow train said...

Peter--I really didn't believe Indiana would go for Obama until Election Night. But it happenened--my presidential vote actually counted for the first time in my life. Obama actually visited our two states and spent money on advertising. I got a call from the local Obama office asking if I'd voted, and could proudly tell him that Obama had at least three votes in Elkhart's 30th Precinct, a Republican stronghold. No other presidential campaign has bothered.

Unknown said...

I am suspicious about Obama. His speech is kind of similar to the Hungarian PM's motto and he is bad.

Tea N. Crumpet said...

Ropi, what is his motto?

Steve, I do not knwo what to think, but if McCain were in I would also not know what to think because s'Plain would be taking up the press with her wardrobe and reshaping grammar structures.

steve on the slow train said...

Ropi--I had to look up the Hungarian PM in Wikipedia, and he seems a little suspect. But don't judge Obama because of a similar slogan. For one thing, Obama doesn't have the shady business dealings attributed to Gyurcsány. For another, Gyurcsány seems to be a capitalist masquerading as a socialist, while Obama is a capitalist who's called a socialist by his enemies.

Tea--Sarah Palin couldn't hurt English grammar any more than Bush already has. But then, I was disappointed to hear Obama use the word "enormity" to mean "vastness," as opposed to its original meaning, a moral outrage. His usage is acceptable according to the dictionary. It's just that there really isn't another word to replace enormity in its original sense, whrere there are dozens of words that mean "the state of being very large."