
John M. Broder's piece in the New York Times looking at the prospects for a president from the post-Baby Boomer generation is well worth reading, though it focuses mainly on Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic presidential field.
While the Obama-Clinton generational dynamic will mostly play out in the primaries, Republican voters will be weighing the candidacy of one of the oldest men ever to seek the presidency, John McCain, 70, the only member of the likely field born before the baby boom’s unofficial start in 1943. (There is disagreement over what birth years define the baby boom; some say 1946 to 1964, but the sociologists Neil Howe and William Strauss consider the boomer bulge to have begun in 1943 and ended in 1960.)
McCain is of the World War 2 generation from which America got presidents Kennedy through Bush the Elder. Clinton and the current Bush are Baby Boomer presidents.
In the GOP field, first-tier candidates former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani are Boomer candidates, as are second-tier candidates and potential candidates like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, and current congressmen Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul.
The GOP field currently has no post-boomber candidates.






Comment Preview