Recently many here have cast Obama as a triangulator who cares nothing about the struggles of the 60's. His supportershave also been cast as young,stupid hacks with no historical perspective. As an 18 year old bound for college I am telling you he has the ability to galvanize young generation like no candidate in recent years.
Some here have suggested that the new generation is full of bimbos and morons, who care nohting about the direction of this country. That could not be further from the truth. My generation the so called "Echo Boom" is just awakening. We are awakening in an America at war, an America with a failing economy, and an America with a totally dysfunctional government. In this atmosphere one candidate stood up and said "Fix It". It was not John Edwards, it was certainly not Hillary Clinton. The man was Barack Obama. We do not like the America we see. Thats why we support a man who will and can fundamentally change the direction of this country. America can be transformed, if only we believe in our ability to transform it. We are for Obama, and not just against Clinton. He gave us somehting to vote for and just not something to vote against(Clinton Part II). Obama makes us want to change the country. He makes us feel we have a vested interest in the future, and that we can vote in an election where we are not picking the lesser of two evils.
We should not be pitting young against old. Everyone here is driven by the fact that we can and should leave this world a little better than we found it. However at the same time, older voters should understand why younger voters get turned off by politics. 2004 was an election as much about Vietnam as Iraq. Now we finally have a candidate who speaks to the future. The 60's we a time of marked, and good social change. However the 60's ended forty years ago. To people like myself, who in good time will make up the majority of voters, we want to know what the candidate will do in the future, not whether or not they dodged the draft.
Obama as a candidate is not pandering to one segment of the party. His supporters come from every demographic spectrum over young, old, black, white etc. He just simply represents change from the partisan politics that has been crippling this country. If he is the nominee we no longer have to have the conversation about where Obama was in 1968. The conversation will be what he is going to do as President in 2008. If Obama is the nominee, young voters will come out in droves the way they came out in Iowa. Democrats will then be on their way to cementing a progressive majority.