Well, perhaps not that young, but it's a fun line to quote. I'll eventually get to quite a bit of postmorteming and future gazing, but at this point I want to wrap up the continuing story of the very old Senate now becoming not quite as very old.
I have a total of nineteen seats changing hands between Election Day 2008 and the new Senate that will begin work in January, assuming no further changes, and for the time being assuming that Bennet, Murray, and Murkowski all hang on to win.
Those nineteen new Senators are a grand total of...wait for it...276 years younger than the 19 Senators they replaced. That's pretty dramatic! Of course, it's a tough fight against inertia, since the continuing Senators are getting older. Still, this will be the first Senate to turn back the clock in quite a while.
It actually could have been a bigger effect. We could still see ten years taken off the total if Miller beats Murkowski in Alaska. But it looks to me that she'll probably win that one, just as the older candidate won in Illinois, Delaware, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, California, and Nevada, among other spots; the only really nice results for the Younger Party yesterday were in Florida, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Three of the five biggest races (as far as age is concerned) went to the older candidate.
So, a bit of disappointment in the end, but at least in my view it's a definite step in the right direction.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
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Is there any history of a party that makes an explicit generational appeal? For me, I would be much more excited about voting for Democrats is they pushed for a shared prosperity, rather than the system we have now where a huge amount of money is spent on keeping senior citizens healthy and well-off, while ignoring the plight of middle-aged and young people. The ACA was a step in that direction, but Democrats were afraid to talk about the people it benefited most, so instead were forced to defend its justified cuts to Medicare Advantage.
ReplyDeleteI would guess that McGovern fits into this category, but was his platform youth-focused, or was it just optics? Some states, like Arizona, seem particularly suited for this approach.