Generation Gap? That's so sixties

On an MSNBC video clip this morning, Barack Obama talked about the "generation gap." He didn't use that terminology, which is so sixties. But maybe that's how the question was asked. He at least seemed to agree with the idea that he, as a younger non-Vietnam-generation politician, might have an advantage over his older colleagues such as Hilary Clinton. "They've been fighting the same battles since the sixties." That hit me like a ton of cliches, probably because I've been fighting the same battles since the sixties. I'm two years younger than Hilary Clinton. We're the first batch of the Baby Boomer cohort, born 1946-50. We came of age in the sixties and we fought all those battles and we keep fighting them. There are some positives in that, but also a burden. We can't seem to stop fighting them. We have been at each other's throats for so long it seems normal. But where has it lead? True believers George W. Bush and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney on The Right; dumstruck liberals like me and Hilary and Dennis Kucinich and Michael Moore on The Left. Butting heads in the public arena and nothing getting accomplished.

I've thought this for awhile, that maybe it will take someone from a different generation, someone who grew up in a different country, to show us the way out of our morass. Barack Obama might be that person on the Democratic side. Could be Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Repub side. Don't shoot me, fellow Dems. Arnold is getting stuff done across the board in California. Yes, he's still beholden in some ways to the national neo-con agenda, but he's blazing new trails in energy conservation.

Maybe there are other pols out there who can bring us together. We need some visionaries, now more than ever.