The Unstoppable Obama

You heard it here first, Barack Obama will go wire to wire in the 2008 Presidential Election.

There are several factors that lead me to this prediction. The first is, of course, Obama's stunning landslide victory in the Iowa Caucuses. The second is, for the first time since JFK and RFK, the most youthful demographic in the electorate, 18-30, has a candidate that not only they can get excited about, but also one that they will turn out and vote for. The third is that, for the first time, a minority candidate has proven his political ability and popularity among white, mid-western voters.

The Youth Factor

I am twenty-six years old. The first president I have any cognizable memory of is George Bush I. I was just a child for most of the Reagan administration. My generation has no real memory of any president who was not named Bush or Clinton. Although President Clinton was wildly popular during most of his presidency, he was anything but inspiring. His impeachment is maybe one reason why. He did little to excite my generation, and even if he could have excited us it would have meant little because most of us were not old enough to have voted for him in 1996.

My generation, what Thomas Friedman calls the "Q generation" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/opinion/10friedman.html, has always been fairly disinfranchised from the American political system. The first Presidential Election that my generation was old enought to have voted in was the 2000 election. This election will always be remembered by my generation as the election in which George W. Bush was elected, although he lost the popular vote.

My generation was rattled on the morning of September 11, 2001. The news came while most of us were preparing for the schoolday. The president became immensely popular in the wake of the tragedy, but how did he inspire us with his leadership? Did he ask us to enlist, which many of us would have? Did he ask that we volunteer? Did he ask that we sacrafice? No. He did nothing to inspire our strength and ambition. He asked us to shopping.

The Iraq war was another downer. A surprising number of us probably supported the war effort in the beginning, like a surprising number of Congressmen and media personalities. Unfortunately, for more important reasons than just the voter turnout rate of my generation, the war has been managed very poorly. For those of my generation involved in it, many of my close friends, it is not only a downer because they are over there fighting it. It is a downer because of the frustrating rules of engagement. Even people who didn't live through the Vietnam era know that waiting to fire until fired upon is not the way you win a war.

The 2004 Presidential Election was anything but an exciting contest. John Kerry could not have seemed more inept against the Karl Rove machine if he had stood idly while one of us was held down by Bush goons and tazed while exclaiming: "Don't taze me bro!"

But now, for the first time in our generation, we have a man worth getting behind. He is a commanding orator. He doesn't look like the same tire old men we're used to. It doesn't sound forced when he speaks of hope. He is the first presidential candidate that we have seen who looks like he could play the President in a movie or television show.

The youth factor, more than any other, is why Obama cannot be beat. Polls do not represent the Q Generation. Pollsters usually don't bother calling cell phones and many of us don't own traditional land-line telephones. A poll of "likely voters" almost by definition excludes my generation. If Iowa illustrates anything it is that we are showing up this year, and conventional wisdom has no way of accounting for the ramifications of it.

The Minority Factor

Even more than Obama appeals to young people, he appeals to racial minority groups, particularly African-Americans who have just been waiting for their candidate who can compete with white candidates in states where the electorate is dominated by white people. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton did not fit the bill.

For the first time in history, minority voters have a viable candidate. They have a candidate that can win it all.

Obama's appeal to minorities is important for two reasons. First, it will solidify the so called "minority vote" which is typically split among democratic candidates. Second, it will add to the minority voting demographic by turning out the minority vote.

Like young voters, minority voters have been disenfranchised from the system. It would require no less than the entire racial history of the United States to fully understand why. However, the fact remains that they neither register to vote nor turn out as much as their white counterparts, particularly in the primaries.

The minority factor was not proven empirically in Iowa, and it probably won't be proven in New Hampshire. Neither state has enough minority voters to really illustrate the effect of Obama on minority voter registration and turnout. Michigan and South Carolina, however, will show that in 2008, minority voters are showing up.

What Iowa did illustrate was that Obama can win, and win big, in a predominately white state.

In short, Obama is going to win not only because he is popular among established voting groups - rural, white, and middle class, but also because he is popular among groups that have yet to be fully represented in the American electorate - young, urban, and minority.