obama convinces young folks that he really can.

[redwing]

The editorial notebook

Obama convinces young folks that, yes, he really can

By Adam de Jong

Special to Tthe Courier-Journal

LOS ANGELES -- Mingling at a typical Saturday night party at UCLA on Jan. 26, just hours after the returns came in from the Democratic primary in South Carolina, there was a surreal atmosphere, one that I haven't sensed on a college campus in my fours years of undergraduate studies.

It was optimism.

Nearly everyone I spoke with had watched Sen. Barack Obama give his victory speech from Columbia, S.C., a speech that referred several times back to one of the Obama campaign slogans -- "Yes, we can."

Every person at the party who had listened to Obama's idealistic message of hope was left with a feeling of euphoria. People were celebrating, high-fiving, even repeating lines from the speech. And these weren't just your typical leftist college kids. One of the people basking in the moment was a self-proclaimed conservative friend who voted for President Bush in 2004, as he said, "with the intention of never voting again." Whether people, particularly Clinton supporters, want to acknowledge it, there is something strange happening right now.

There are -- brace yourself -- young people who actually believe that a presidential candidate is speaking for them. It is not just students at universities. So many Americans under the age of 40 truly feel as if there is a candidate who personifies their weariness with the American political process and disdain for the level of dialogue exchanged in campaigns, all the while enthusiastic that the country can find a way to solve problems that seem to be a matter of morality rather than partisanship.

That candidate, of course, is Obama. Ever since the Illinois senator entered the race, he has been likened to some kind of reincarnation of President John F. Kennedy, or even his younger brother Bobby. That media narrative has only been broadened since Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, endorsed Obama for the Democratic nomination.

But the truth is that Obama's appeal has little to do with American political history. Obama's support among younger voters is reflected in the nation's universities, which are filled with students who have grown up in an era in which women's role in the workplace is secure, sexual orientation is no longer a binary discussion of straight-or-gay and identity politics is so overexposed that it is playfully satirized.

In short, college students symbolize a younger generation that no longer sees political engagement as a matter of left-versus-right or liberal-against-conservative. The political debate among students is no longer about globalization, same-sex marriage, abortion or even health care. As far as the under-40 crowd can tell, all those issues seem to be moving toward an inevitable solution.

Among the young, so-called liberals are pro-growth globalists while so-called conservatives are indifferent to what people do in their bedrooms. The major concerns of younger voters are:

How to eliminate partisan hackery so that the U.S. can lead the world in environmental policy and ultimately find an alternative energy resource so that we are no longer buying oil from despotic leaders in the Middle East; or

How the country can move past the hawkish foreign policy of the right and the pseudo-realist policy of the left to open lines of diplomatic communication so that the U.S. can use its power to prevent another Darfur.

More important, young people are looking for a leader who can convince everyone to feel the pull of civic duty to help stop global warming and widespread poverty and starvation in emerging nations. These are issues that will be solved not by partisan posturing but by a singular voice that can elevate the national discourse, to convince Republican and Democratic politicians alike that their constituents are yearning for a dramatic shift in policy. This is not to mention the disastrous fallout of the Iraq war. Are young people the only ones who yearn for a candidate who didn't vote for the war?

For all these reasons, and so many more that would require much more space to articulate, Obama has done something that so many politicians have tried, but almost none have been able to do: capture the imagination of America's youth with the intellectual sobriety of those who have come before it. Contrast that against what Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal told The New Yorker's George Packer: "It's not a question of transcending partisanship. It's a question of fulfilling it."

[redwing]

i'm just glad i'm old and can see through this political rhetoric.

[Marnie]

I'm young, and I can smell a con a mile away.

[tah]

When I was a youth I was an idiot..I went with every con coming and going and I just have a hard time with putting faith in "young"..I guess I am way to jaded..

[Marnie]

I'm young, and I can smell a con a mile away.

I am somewhere between young and old, 42, and I can see through him as well. It is all talk and no substance.

42? Umm...that might be old.

[Marnie]

I'm young, and I can smell a con a mile away.

I am somewhere between young and old, 42, and I can see through him as well. It is all talk and no substance.

42? Umm...that might be old.

It's turning the corner, half way to 84.

Well, as long as you feel young, right? Isn't Obama in his mid 40's, and he's considered young.

[redwing]

I'm young, and I can smell a con a mile away.

I am somewhere between young and old, 42, and I can see through him as well. It is all talk and no substance.

42? Umm...that might be old.

It's turning the corner, half way to 84.

y'all make me feel really old

[mikhail7]

It's a shame that political hot air can't replace fossil fuels as an alternative energy source.

[nebula]

Great - our young people have a rep for not being able to identify the United States on a map, knowing everything about actors and singers/bands, but knowing nothing about history before their kindergarten years . . .

And they are the voice of the campaign.

Scary.

[Guest Biblicist]

Guess this is a good reason there is a voting age....

Proverbs 22:15 A youngster