Books
Politics May Never Be the
Same
By Michael Barone
MILLENNIAL MAKEOVER By
Morley Winograd and
Michael D. Hais (Rutgers
University Press, 309
pages, $24.95)
"What do the new people
want?" That was a
question I heard often
from old- timers when I
was involved in Michigan
Democratic politics in
the late 1960s. The new
people were Eugene
McCarthy supporters and
Vietnam War opponents,
and they were showing up
at county conventions
and outvoting the
old-timers who had
worked with operatives
from the United Auto
Workers to support Gov.
G. Mennen Williams in
the 1950s and the
Kennedy-Johnson ticket
in 1960. They were
mostly affluent, often
young, surprisingly well
organized and in no way
subject to UAW
discipline. The
old-timers had no idea
how to handle them.
Now, some 40 years
later, one of the new
people I met back then
in Michigan, Morley
Winograd, has written,
with communications
researcher Michael D.
Hais, a book on the new
new people who are
thronging into politics
and swelling the
electorate today.
They're the Millennial
Generation, comprising
people born after 1981,
an age cohort first
identified and named by
William Strauss and Neal
Howe in their 1991 book,
"Generations." EXCERPT
Messrs. Winograd and
Hais believe that the
Millennials could spark
a political realignment
and that they have
already revolutionized
campaign and
fund-raising techniques
in ways that may
reverberate for years to
come. I think they're on
to something important.
While I don't agree with
every point in their
analysis, I think that
"Millennial Makeover"
will be read with
pleasure by Democrats
and should be read with
careful, worried
attention by
Republicans.
For there is no denying
the fact that this new
generation of voters is
favorably disposed to
Democrats and, at least
as things stand today,
ill-disposed to
Republicans. Ronald
Reagan brought young
voters to his party in
the 1980s, and Bill
Clinton brought them to
his in the 1990s. George
W. Bush has failed to
attract young voters to
the GOP in the 2000s. If
anything, he has
repelled them.
Who are these new
people? They're the most
racially diverse
generation in American
history. They are
tolerant but tired of
both sides of the
baby-boomer culture
wars. Unlike Generation
X (born between the
mid-1960s and the early
1980s), the Millennials
grew up swathed in
attention. They're
optimistic and less
inclined to substance
abuse and premarital
sex. They've performed
community service, and
they tend to have lots
of friends with whom
they keep in touch
through MySpace and
Facebook. They're
technologically savvy;
they're constantly
instant messaging their
friends and consider
email so 1990s.
Politically, they're
participants. They
contributed to swelling
voter turnout in 2002,
2004 and 2006. With no
memory of the economic
breakdown of the 1970s,
they are confident that
the federal government
can solve problems, and
they don't think that
special interests run
Washington. But they are
also confident that
people can get ahead by
working hard and playing
by the rules. They want
the U.S. involved in the
world and, unthreatened
by a military draft,
they aren't
disproportionately part
of the heavily gray-hair
antiwar movement.
Messrs. Winograd and
Hais believe that the
Millennials' new media
are changing the
political map just as
other "new" technologies
have done in the past:
Think only of the
telegraph in antebellum
America, newspapers in
the yellow-journalism
era, radio in the 1930s
and television in the
1960s. The authors also
argue, convincingly,
that Democrats in the
current campaign cycle
have proved much more
adept at using new
technology and the
social networks they
foster.
Barack Obama's campaign
and, lately, Hillary
Clinton's have raised
vastly more money over
the Internet than John
McCain's. Republicans
seem bent on top-down
control of Web activity,
while Democrats have
encouraged thousands of
flowers to bloom.
Republican blogger
Patrick Ruffini, whom
the authors cite, noted
recently that "Obama's
ceiling is probably
still at least twice as
high as McCain's
traditional event-driven
model — with a much
lower cost of
fundraising."
Of course, political
events are moving more
quickly than mere book
publishing — a slow,
old- media form — can
always accommodate.
Luckily for Messrs.
Winograd and Hais, Mr.
Obama seems the likely
Democratic nominee for
president; writing some
months ago, they advised
their fellow Democrats
to nominate a candidate
"with broad appeal
beyond the Baby Boomer,
ideologically driven
base of the party." But
they see possible danger
for the Democrats, too.
Mr. Obama's appeal is
pitched shrewdly toward
Millennials, but his
positions are a lot like
the "older generation
liberalism" that Messrs.
Winograd and Hais
believe could bring the
Democrats down. The
authors warn that
treating the Iraq war as
just another iteration
of Vietnam could prevent
Democrats from proposing
the sort of engaged
internationalism and
forward-looking defense
against Islamist
terrorism that
Millennials seek. As a
commenter on my own blog
recently wrote: "I'm
sick and tired of having
my politics determined
by an unsuccessful war
fought when my parents
were 12!"
I don't believe that our
politics inevitably go
through realignments on
some generational
schedule. But I do
believe that the voter
responses of earlier
generations don't
reliably predict the
responses of later
generations with
different life
experiences. "Millennial
Makeover" shows the
potential of an age
cohort that was not part
of politics in 2000, is
on the leading edge of
politics today and will
be a large share of the
electorate in 2016.
When, by the way, the
near-Millennial Chelsea
Clinton and Jenna and
Barbara Bush will be
eligible to run for
president.
Mr. Barone is a
senior writer for U.S.
News & World Report, a
resident scholar at the
American Enterprise
Institute and principal
co-author of "The
Almanac of American
Politics."
