November 01, 2006
Changing Some Diapers; Or, How It's Still The Sixties
Appearing on "Meet the Press" on Oct. 22, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was asked about his observation that, “When you watch Clinton vs. Gingrich or Gore vs. Bush or Kerry vs. Bush….you feel like these are fights that were taking place back in dorm rooms in the sixties.” Russert asked Obama, “Are you suggesting that those political players are, are the past and you represent a new generation that won’t get caught or bogged down in those kinds of debates?”
The question, along with Obama’s subsequent foray into the White House field, is representative of a larger generational shift that is likely to surface in the 2008 campaign. From Dan Quayle in 1988, to George Bush and John Kerry in 2004, the complexities of Vietnam seem to play out every four years with presidential candidates comparing National Guard records, swift boat pictures, ROTC letters, and student deferments.
And as highlighted in yesterday’s back-and-forth between Sen. John McCain and Sen. John Kerry the Vietnam war issue assumes continued political relevance as criticism of Iraq grows. Somehow Kerry telling college students they'd "get stuck in Iraq,” spiraled, yesterday, into a series of Swift Boat-like shots that culminated in Kerry’s camp releasing a statement from Vietnam veteran and ex- Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA). Cleland’s statement attested that “John is a patriot who has fought tooth and nail for veterans ever since he came home from Vietnam. “ For Obama, the debate was probably as good an indictment as any that the “dorm room” debates of the 60s are still around, and yes, still “bogging” us down. [NORA MCALVANAH]
But Kerry and McCain are just one end of the enormous Baby Boom generation which will be on display in the next WH contest. At the other end, 2008 will feature members of a different generation: candidates who have never had to account for their military service and who did not experience the war first hand. Candidates born after 1952 like Obama, John Edwards, Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov Mike Huckabee, and Senators Russ Feingold, Evan Bayh, and Sam Brownback, did not turn 18 until 1971 when the draft was in decline, and thus, are the first candidates to emerge who will not be subject to the litmus test of Vietnam.
If Quayle marked the transition to a breed of baby-boomer candidates measured by Vietnam-era actions, 2008 could mark the transition to a breed of baby boomers less likely to be shaped by that era. I t is unclear how Obama and his fellow WH hopefuls will change politics if they run in ‘08, but there presence alone will make it harder for older candidates to continually refer back to the personal, layered, and contentious questions of the 60’s, as they did yesterday. Kerry first learned the difficulty of running on an old war with new candidates in the 2004 primary, when he was asked about then youngest candidate, John Edwards and said, “When I came back from Vietnam in 1969 I don't know if John Edwards was out of diapers.” It looks like Kerry may be changing even more diapers in 2008.
Posted at 10:12 AM
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