Why would you trust a party, nevermind a nation, to folks who came of age in the 60s and 70s?

Because, sooner or later, you'll have to.

The important thing, though, is to trust the country to people who have learned things since the '60s and '70s.

it is nothing but good news as far as I am concerned. Youth movement was another boomer fantasy. hah

"Because, sooner or later, you'll have to"

Not really. Just keep electing old guys like Dole and Bush the Elder until the generation of the 80s is old enough. Notice how the generation that was born in the mid to late 30s through WW II never elected a president, the closest they came was Dukakis.

Like our current President? Secretary of State Rice? The 60s and 70s noisemakers, no trust. The 60s and 70s majority, certainly trust.

The Democratic party has been hijacked and is on the way to irrelevance.

They didn't just "come of age", they became the age. There's a big difference. If it weren't for the rest of us who sobered up and dropped back in there would be a drunken idiot and a Communist sympathizer attending the Pope's funeral this week.

It's obvious that even a rudimentary understanding of the marketplace is not a job requirement for journalists at the WaPo. Dean appeals to a very narrow segment of the electorate. They are over-educated, perhaps blinkered people, who live in narrow bubble environments surrounded almost entirely by people like themselves except for the serving class who are beneath notice. But the reality is that they are a very small percentage of the marketplace that is the American electorate, even in the Democratic Party.

Politics isn't like selling automobiles. A carmaker does not need to sell a car to 50%+1 of the population to be successful, in a two-party winner-take-all system like our own, a politician must get the votes of 50%+1 of the voting public. In business terms, Dean is a niche market not unlike BMWs.

Since television is ad dependent, it needs sponsors to pay for the programming. Sponsors are concerned not with just the question of viewership, but the 'right' viewership, people too dumb or too easily encouraged through snob appeal, cheesy bimbos in bikinis and what not to buy whatever the sponsors wish to sell. For example, pro bowling always had more viewers than the snoozefest that is the PGA Tour, but the viewers of the PGA Tour were 'the right viewers' so off goes bowling and on comes a bunch of fat guys with sticks waddling around a big field with some other poor schlub carrying the clubs, and some bozo with an English accent telling us how 'dangerous' some shot is.

When the votes are counted, the rich guy and the poor guy have the same vote.(The rich guy can pay the slimebuckets we elect to do his bidding but that is another essay) A policy of appealing to a narrow segment of the market while ignoring most of the marketplace works if you're selling IPods but not if you're trying to be elected. The simple fact is that what the Dean voters want simply repels the vast majority of the electorate(Tuesday's vote in Kansas is a good example) and that to appeal to those voters is to offend the rest of the country. If you're selling kosher preserves(like Polaner) you can make fun of people with Southern accents, but not if you're trying to win a national election. If you want to appear hip, you can make fun of polka music(like Michelob),but not if you're hoping to make a decent showing in Germano-America from the Delaware to the Missouri. Making fun of people with blow-dried hair may work in Hollywood, but not in an Oklahoma Senate race(as James Jones found out).

Truly the "Democratic Wing" of the Democratic Party.

Raoul, that was the smallest generation in recent history and generally gets screwed regularly as the target of demographic decisions relating to how can we tick off the fewest number of people in a target population.

Regarding Dean's followers; "death taxes" haven't been progressive enough to minimize those who don't have to work; have the time and money to assuage their collective conscience about same; then become the vanguard and treasury of the Socialistic/Marxist/anticapitalist/bourgeois hating left wing. "The brightest and the best" ... the trust pubescents and their groupies following Peter dean in search of "Never Never Land".

I'd like to meet the 1% of Dean suporters who don't think the war in Iraq was a mistake.

Jim --

They're probably backing him just in the hope that he'll provide an ongoing source of unintentional entertainment.

HEY! I resemble that remark. Me be Jonesin', we tail-enders were invited to the party only to clean up.

Come of age, I could never figure that out, is it 18 or 21?

Oh, help us all since 50 is the new 30.

But if you accept a broad definition of that generation, 1930-1945 (which isn't as broad as definitions of "Baby Boomers"), that's where all the 60's leadership came from-- the rock stars and the SDS types. They had their chance early, and blew it.

Really, it's the group born between about 1940 and 1952 or so that caused all the societal tantrums during the 1960s and early 1970s. But you can't toss that entire group out or you'd eliminate much of the current Executive Branch of government. It's just annoying that any of those jerks -- including late 30s babies like Abbie Hoffman -- have been portrayed in the media as the shining lights of the Baby Boom generation, of which the last decade or so of kids had no say whatsoever in what their annointed representatives were doing.

What's wrong with cheesy bimbos in bikinis? Sounds like my kind of program.

Dean shmean! Bush bull!...
Party politics is a joke. Neither Dem or GOP are the parties they used to be.
Vote the person!

Don't get me wrong. I like cheesy bimbos in bikinis as much as any 40 year old unmarried, professional math nerd who has bookmarked the FHM website. But I don't allow them to tell me which car to buy, any more than how to balance the portfolio, or that I would marry one.

"...more liberal and secular than Democrats generally..." Whoa! Is that even possible?

FHM has a website?

FHM.com

Jim,

I would bet the one percent are affluent, Jewish gays.