Frank Rich Column in NYT on Obama

Frank Rich has a very interesting column in the New York Times Sunday, December 2, 2007 edition about Barack Obama's chances to become the Democratic nominee. In the article, Rich points out how the "Beltway media" in D.C. has been mostly wrong about the 2008 campaign. Here is a quote from Rich:

Election year isn’t even here yet, and already most of the first drafts penned by the political press have proved instantly disposable, from Fred Thompson’s irresistible Reaganesque star power to the Family Research Council’s ability to abort the rise of Rudy Giuliani. The biggest Beltway myth so far — that the Clinton campaign is “textbook perfect” and “tightly disciplined” — was surely buried for good by the undisciplined former president’s seemingly panic-driven blunder last week.

Rich is making a very good point. Most of the time the political press does get it wrong. The political press thinks about politics all the time. It's their job. They also have to produce stories all the time. Again, because it's their job. When they produce these stories, however, they are mostly trying to predict the behavior of voters who don't have to make a decision for some time. Consequently, they have a good chance of making bad predications.

The intangible thing that Obama may have going for him is the fact that most Americans are tired of the type of politics they have gotten since the cultural wars of the 1960s. The 60s produced some very bitter struggles over civil rights, the Vietnam War, the role of women in our society, and laid the path for the battle over gay rights.

Consequently, the politics of baby boomers, who grew up in that decade, have been shaped by those same bitter struggles. We have seen that in the troubles of the first two baby-boomer presidents, Clinton and Bush. Each of them has had their own supporters and opponents who seemed determined to fight to the death. Such struggles take a toll on voters' psyches. Voters may be looking for a way to end these battles.

Barack Obama, being the youngest of all the presidential contenders in both parties, is positioned to take advantage of such sentiment, if it exists. If he was to win the Democratic nomination and then go on to win the presidency, the fact that he was born in the 1960s and therefore not shaped by its bitterness would be a big reason why.