I try to avoid talking about politics on both Wordie and Errata, with mixed results. Likewise I try to stay on the topic of language and words, or at least in the ballpark.
But Marc Andreessen’s latest post is just too interesting not to pass on. So to paraphrase Leslie Gore, it’s my blog, and I’ll repost Andreessen if I want to.
In early 2007 Andreessen spent 90 minutes talking privately with Obama, before the media frenzy made that impossible for normal people (not that Andreessen is all that normal). He writes eloquently about the very positive impression Obama made on him, and about how Obama comes across in an unguarded setting. It’s an enlightening post, and will have a particularly strong impact on Andreessen’s post-Boomer cohort.
Despite the fact that Andreessen apparently contributed to Mitt Romney’s campaign (wtf?), I’m going to take a flier. You heard it here first: Obama/Andreessen ’08.
“…and will have a particularly strong impact on Andreessen’s post-Boomer cohort.” Let’s hope some of the people he reaches are those tech types who thought Ron Paul was the Second Coming.
Great post. Thanks for the link.
Andreesen’s underlining the salience of Obama being a Post-Boomer is right on target, but it’s relevant for us to understand which Post-Boomer generation.
There is a growing consensus in the media, and among experts, that Obama is not a Boomer, nor an Xer, but instead is a member of Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, the heretofore lost generation between the Boomers and Xers).
Just in the last month or so, several top media outlets, including The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, and NBC, have all made the argument that Obama is specifically part of Generation Jones. I also heard a panel of generations experts recently on a national radio show discussing this specific issue, and four of the five experts conlcuded that Obama is, in fact, a GenerationJoneser…that his bio and political worldview closely match the GenJones archetype.