Why they are looking at the skinny guy - by Garrison Keillor

[groovedaddy]

Sen. McCain is 71 and most likely he will be the last Old Guy presidential candidate for all of you boomers. Goodbye, Great White Father in Washington. It happens as you age: Other people get younger. The pilots flying you to New York are teenagers. Your banker, your therapist, even your urologist is young. Still, you go along thinking of the Leader of the Free World as your old civics teacher, genial, omniscient, wielding his pointer, patiently answering dumb questions, and then one day one of your classmates has the pointer in hand, and he is not one of the smart ones. It's a big whoosh in your life: Mr. Teacher has left the building and Larry has taken over.

It's a long throw from Mr. McCain's 71 to Sen. Barack Obama's 46 and that may be the big invisible issue in the fall: Do we feel better with Papa at the helm or the whiz kid brother? It's a visceral choice you make without thinking too hard about tax policy or judicial appointments. For people like me who think the war in Iraq is a horrible wrong turn, it's an easy choice, but the election won't be decided by people like me -- it'll be decided by people who could go either way and who make up their minds at the last minute.

Papa appeals to us because we're sentimental and we assume he's learned a few things. (One could argue that you learn more of the right things in the Illinois legislature than in the Elks Club that is the U.S. Senate, but never mind.) The beauty of the kid brother candidate is the plain hope that we can put a chunk of the past behind us and not keep reliving it over and over. Our 51-49 national impasse. The culture wars. Our mutual misapprehensions. Old debates that we're sick of and that go nowhere. Let's get out of this political boneyard where old hacks sit grinding their gums over the burning questions of 1968. We're done with the Current Occupant, who is dead wrong and proud of it. Time to leave the ranch and head for the 21st Century.

I'm the father of a sandy-haired, gap-toothed 10-year-old girl, and I realize that whoever we elect in November will be the first president of her memory, just as Ike is mine.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080227/OPINION04/802271045/1054/OPINION

[liberal N proud]

1. Great editorial

Thanks for posting, always like reading Keillor.

[DeSwiss]

2. Loves me some Garrison Keillor. :-)

- K&R!

[crispini]

3. This bit was GREAT!

I do, however, believe in the big leap by which you skip a mess of complicated trouble and move on into the future. Johnson's Civil Rights Act, Nixon's trip to China, Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon, the demolition of the Berlin Wall -- great moments when we turned the clock forward.

That hope for the leap forward seems deeply felt this year. And that's why people are looking at the skinny guy. They don't want to be replaying old tapes next spring. They just can't bear the thought of going through the past seven years all over again.

[tanyev]

4. I figured when Clinton beat Poppy in 1992 that we had seen a new generation

take over. And how did the GOP counter it 4 years later? Bob Dole. Not a recipe for success.

[yurbud]

8. then GOP went Caligula retro with Baby Bush

[alterfurz]

12. aka Caligilliganula

or Cminus Augustus

[Voice for Peace]

5. If Barack becomes president

Our responsibliity is to pay attention, and continue to demand accountability
of our government.

It takes a nearly superhuman integrity and commitment to truth for one person
to get so much power and not be corrupted by it. I am thinking we can
help make sure that doesn't happen to him.

[BridgeTheGap]

7. You're right - Citizen involvement/participation is critical

It's one of those "key components" often over looked. Obama is calling for it too.

[global1]

6. It Happens As You Age: Other People Get Younger.......

I realized and accepted this when I realized that baseball players were younger than I was. It was a rude awakening for me and a true milestone. From then on it was easy to accept.

[madmom]

9. Nope that's not it, it's just my kids are catching up with me in age!

[road2000]

11. Exactly!

That's why I always prayed for Nolan Ryan to stick around for another year!

It's a curious feeling to know the next president may be the first to be younger than I am. Hope so!

[sepulveda]

10. and nader's two years OLDER than mccain! nt

[morningglory]

13. At least he is not named Jerrod.

No offense to the Jerrods, but when I hear certain names, I picture 4-year-olds. Then ,darn it, Justin's my surgeon! Edited to add: What if you were on your airplane and the pilot came on the speaker system and said "Hi! This is your pilot, Brittany."

[BridgeTheGap]

14. Pilot Brittany: "Like, please fasten your seat belts!"

Perish the thought!