Have the baby boomers got it wrong?

BARACK OBAMA (Dina Rudick/Globe Staff)

In recent interviews with the Globe editorial board, the three leading Democratic presidential candidates were each asked a question unique to his or her campaign. Here are their answers.

OUR POLITICS have not moved on in the way that the American people have. And we can see it across the board.

One of the things I've discovered as I've traveled across the country is that the American people have a complex set of attitudes about a whole range of issues. So, when they think about military intervention, it's not constantly through the prism of Vietnam - are you a hawk or are you a dove? - but rather, is this a sensible step that's going to make us safer?

When they think about issues around gender or family or sexuality, they don't think in terms of 'are you Gloria Steinem or Phyllis Schlafly?' They think in terms of, 'I want to make sure that my family is cared for and that my values are being transmitted, but I don't want the government, you know, poking into all of my business.'

And so the point is, whether it's cultural wars or how we think about our foreign policy or how we think about our economics, the baby boom generation resolved a lot of these conflicts in their own lives, but our politics remained stuck in this deeply polarized pattern. And that's the reason people are so frustrated. That's why people don't ever see themselves reflected in the debates. And part of the reason why I think we've done well historically is that I'm using a language that I think is more in tune with the American people, which says, I'm not going to demonize you because you disagree with me, that I don't think the Democrats have a monopoly on wisdom. But we have a strong set of principles and values that we care about. I'm unwavering in my commitment to a set of goals like making sure that every child has equal opportunity, making sure that upward mobility continues in our society, but I'm more agnostic in terms of how we achieve it.