Guest Host Blogger Matthew Sawh: The Cool Consensus and the Cool Candidate
The most compelling reason Obama should be president is that he can do for public and government service what Teach for America did for the cause of urban education. Bluntly: TFA made the cause of urban education cool.
Founder Wendy Kopp achieved this through a very-deliberate, high profile marketing scheme. She set up a recruitment apparatus at the top colleges and universities and went toe-to-toe with McKinsey, Bain and, the other usual suspects. Buzz was created as it was a prize. One could do well by joining TFA as well as doing well by having it on one's resume.
Cool is a very important cultural marker and, one which may matter more than reality itself. Thomas Frank (later author of What's the Matter with Kansas) posited a strong case in The Conquest of Cool that the zeitgeist of the 60's was engineered in advertising firms that propelled corporate America. One can see this thesis advanced in AMC's smash-television success, Mad Men.
Cool is the lubricant that runs American society. Cool reaches deep into the psyche and, reflects our psychological state. The two cardinal sins of American culture are to be thought un-cool or, even worse, old. Consequently, it often embodies [or encapsulates?] the ambitions or anxieties of Americans in their twenties.
Let's use the 1980's 'Greed is good' ethos to serve as an example of cool-in action. According to Daniel Brooks, 1980 marked the first time that college freshman thought being very well off was more important than developing a meaningful philosophy of life. Family Ties Alex P. Keaton (1982-1989) Trading Places (1983), Wall Street (1987) and, Working Girl (1988) were all extensions and variations on the idea that a (wo)man like those now-graduated college freshman just starting out in the world was ultimately made by going to battle with the financial market and, taming it before it tamed you . Cool (often, but not always) trickles up, into the cultural consciousness from youngest to oldest.
Just consider this sentence: If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary, hip, black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool. So said one unnamed Hillary Clinton advisor on January 10th to The Guardian. It is certainly untrue and unfair to criticize Obama as a man who coasted on cool, but, that advisor had his finger on our pulse (and America's).
As the Democratic Primary battle raged, millennials were the stealth force at work in shaping the contest. Yes, young turnout was up in Iowa helping to propel Obama to victory and, yes, the young were intrigued. These two minor points miss the major point.
In late January as Super Tuesday I loomed, Hillary Clinton was still the prohibitive favorite. The terrain shook as three prominent female Democratic politicians crossed Hillary Clinton. Why would they go against her? Because their children said so: Missouri's Claire McCaskill credits her 18-year old daughter as being the factor behind her decision to endorse Obama; Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius cited her older sons efforts. Most importantly, Doyenne Caroline Kennedy invoked her children as a pivotal force behind her Obama endorsement that resulted in massive Obama momentum.
What is it about Barack Obama that has Millennials crowing over his coolness?
First, We're noticed. Obama Addresses Our issues. In the third-debate Obama scored when he said: Recently (McCain's) key economic adviser was asked about why he didn't seem to have some specific programs to help young people go to college and the response was, well, you know, we can't give money to every interest group that comes along. I don't think America's youth are interest groups, I think they're our future. And this is an example of where we are going to have to prioritize.
Across three debates, Obama has mentioned college affordability and debt ten times and, he invoked the specter of young-people in national service once. By contrast, McCain mentioned the $10T debt on young people once during the second debate and, a rise in youth obesity during the third debate.
Character runs deeper than authenticity. It also speaks to temperament and worldview.
Second, Obama's Cool Temperament Mirrors Our Own: He may be more liberal on policy, but, his unflappable, quiet, calm demeanor strikes us as the authentic, real deal at a time when our culture is rampant with artifice. Harvard's Institute of Politics survey of 18-24 year-olds found that the second most cited reason to support Obama was his 'character'.
Meanwhile, this was not the 3rd, 4th or 5th, reason provided for supporting Clinton or McCain. McCain's commonly referenced period is the early seventies. For better or worse, Hillary learned thrifty, sharp lessons from her failures which do not dovetail with the millennial ethos
Internally, my generation has been shaped by careerist parents in that fatherly, latchkey way or, in cleaning up that debunked 'supermom' myth of third-wave feminism. We've seen more emotional dysfunction and divorce than any other generation.
Externally, the shocks accompanying September 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have bolstered a strong generational preference in our careers for operating conservatively in our own lives through established channels (as noted by career-writer Penelope Trunk).
He May Not Feel Our Pain, But He Understands
We can relate to his biography. This is the most diverse generation. He was raised by a single-mother; he chose to establish himself through education and, he stuck to his principles choosing the public sector over the private sector.
The inexperience charge leveled at Obama on the campaign trail is often leveled at us in the workplace. We are skeptical of experience as a qualifier and, believe that the way one thinks and approaches problems is of greater importance.
This generation has a strong sense of pragmatism. The baby-boomers asked: Is this fair?
We wonder: Does this work? Obama has often held up his days as a community organizer as a bridge between the distance between the world as-it-is and the world as it ought-to-be.
If Obama listened to the DLC handwringers (or myself) in responding to calls that he be more like Bill Clinton, it is quite likely that such a gimmicky move would have triggered a backlash from this demographic.
Should the cool candidate win, expect many millennials to also redefine public service as cool.
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