Analysis: Obama, McCain Apart From Peers

U.S. News & World Report's Michael Barone Says They Missed Formative Experiences Common To Many Americans

(US News)  This analysis was written by U.S. News & World Report columnist Michael Barone.

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Most people's views of the world are shaped by the times in which they came of age. That's why we speak of a baby boom generation or a generation X. But some people miss out on the formative experiences of most of their peers. That's the case, I think, with the Republicans' certain nominee and the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. John McCain missed the 1960s. Barack Obama missed the 1980s.

That's obvious in McCain's case. He was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam between 1967 and 1973--the years of the march on the Pentagon, urban riots, campus rebellions, and Woodstock. He made the point himself last October when he attacked Hillary Clinton's proposal to earmark $1 million for a Woodstock museum. "I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time." And it's part of a larger point. Much of our politics over the past two decades has seemed to be a cultural civil war between the two halves of the baby boom generation, between the cultural liberalism of Bill Clinton and the cultural conservatism of George W. Bush. The resulting polarization has embittered our politics, as the odd couple of Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel argue in their new book, Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That Is Destroying America.

To most voters, McCain seems to stand above or at least aside from that culture war. His lack of fervor about issues like abortion may bother some cultural conservatives, but it is comforting to those with more ambivalent views. If elected, McCain would be the only president from the "silent generation," born between the World War II veterans who served as president from 1961 to 1993 and the two boomers who have served since then. His age and generational identity may turn out to be a political asset.

Obama, born at the tail end of the baby boom generation in 1961, didn't miss the '80s in the same sense that McCain missed the '60s. But in a decade in which Americans decided that government didn't work very well and that markets did, Obama chose to make his way outside the suddenly booming private sector. As a community organizer in Chicago and a student at Harvard Law School, he inhabited a part of the nation where it did not seem like, in the words of the 1984 Reagan ad, "Morning in America." From then until now, he has continued to believe in big government programs--"investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children," as he put it in his speech on race last month. And to insist on addressing the grievances he says are behind his pastor Jeremiah Wright's controversial statements.

Cultural wars. To many voters, it may seem that Obama is proposing the kind of overgenerous welfare programs that were finally rejected in the backwash of the '80s, and in that same speech he concedes that such programs may have had bad effects. But that may be counterbalanced by Obama's appeal to black voters and to the millennial generation (born after 1980) who, like him, missed the '80s.

Clinton, still in contention though behind in delegates, experienced both the '60s and the '80s in full measure. Like her husband and his successor, she polarizes the electorate along cultural lines, and the cultural civil war of the baby boom generation seems likely to continue in a second Clinton administration. The moderate stands Bill Clinton took in the 1990s--supporting NAFTA, for example, or signing the 1996 welfare bill--are liabilities rather than assets for her, at least in the primaries.

No one candidate can embody the experiences of the whole electorate, of course, and many presidents have lived highly atypical lives. Eisenhower was a career military man, Kennedy the son of a multimillionaire, Reagan a movie actor. But it's unusual to have two front-runners who have missed out on the formative experiences of so many Americans. Though perhaps not surprising in a political year that has already given u more surprises than most.

[hungry4goodg]

Biden, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Richardson and Vilsack didn''t try to be ''Rocky.'' The ''super-delegates'' need to play grown-up. Super-delegates, get some gumption and ''vote!'' I had to cast my vote back in February!

[jgunther7]

RowdyTexan2: I disagree with your values of social conduct. We had to suffer through that gutter trash being in the White House before, hopefully never again. Hillary Clinton is not acceptable in polite comapny.

[obama8years]

Ok this is what I got so far again PLEASE IF SOMETHING IS NOT TRUE I WILL TAKE IT OFF. HONEST

Now I think I have a complete list....if anything is not true, I will take it off the list.

CAN ANYONE AD ANYTHING, AM I MISSING ANYTHING ABOUT OBAMA AND HIS ASSOCIATION TO UNSAVORY CHARACTERS. MUCH APPRECIATED. MAKING A LIST AND CHECKING IT TWICE.

How can anyone even think of voting for Obama.

- Went with farakahn to the million man march

- 20 years of church, he stated he rarely missed a sun.

- Related to Muslim Cousin who wants sharia law

- Ties to Ayers who is a known terrorist

- His Wife is finally proud of america

- His wife wrote an essay on black seperatists in
Princeton

- His pastor gave farakahn an award

- His pastor is pro-hamas

- Obama Cousin campaigning for change in kenya.

- Obama lied about his liberal past

- Obama lied about his pastor

- Obama PA campaign Ad about Oil was a Fraud

- Obama Said Babys are a Pain(not exact quote)

- Relationship with Rezco

- Michelle Obama Finances with Hospital

[rowdytexan2]

It is interesting to note that both of these two candidates are polite, well mannered and considerate. They seem to keep outside the mainstream politics of dirty tricksters, character assassins and old backroom wheeler-dealers that we have had to experience in the recent past. The United States may finally return to the dignity that it deserves.


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Posted by jgunther7 at 07:59 PM : Apr 01, 2008

You got that right. Hillary and McCain know how to conduct themselves in a campaign. Straight out and head on!

Obama? Old style corrupt Chicago politics, twist and turn, distort everything, his record, his stance on politics as usual, arrogantly shrug off questions you really don''t want to answer until they bite you in the butt, steal everyone elses plans and legislative ideas...and the list goes on.

[louisemlc48]

I believe McCain is the best man for our next president. I like who he is and what he stands for. He doesn''t have charisma like Obamma, but I''m not looking for charisma I''m looking for experience, integrity, maturity, and in my book McCain is a hero and an honorable man. I''m a republican, an American-Mexican born in the USA, a Christian and I have always been proud to be an American and always will be, but even if McCain was a democrat I would still vote for him. God bless America! And God, may the best man win!

[louisemlc48]

I believe McCain is the best man for our next president. I like who he is and what he stands for. He doesn''t have charisma like Obamma, but I''m not looking for charisma I''m looking for experience, integrity, maturity, and in my book McCain is a hero and an honorable man. I''m a republican, an American-Mexican born in the USA, a Christian and I have always been proud to be an American and always will be, but even if McCain was a democrat I would still vote for him. God bless America! And God, may the best man win!

[louisemlc48]

I believe McCain is the best man for our next president. I like who he is and what he stands for. He doesn''t have charisma like Obamma, but I''m not looking for charisma I''m looking for experience, integrity, maturity, and in my book McCain is a hero and an honorable man. I''m a republican, an American-Mexican born in the USA, a Christian and I have always been proud to be an American and always will be, but even if McCain was a democrat I would still vote for him. God bless America! And God, may the best man win!

[jgunther7]

It is interesting to note that both of these two candidates are polite, well mannered and considerate. They seem to keep outside the mainstream politics of dirty tricksters, character assassins and old backroom wheeler-dealers that we have had to experience in the recent past. The United States may finally return to the dignity that it deserves.