Generation Obama: Politics

Speaking of Obama's youth, Chris and I have been talking, off Brainiac, about whether Obama is too young to run for POTUS and win, or, more to the point, too young to serve. Bill Clinton was actually younger than Obama will be by election day when he took office. And John F. Kennedy was younger still in 1961.

But the issue with Obama, as I see it, is his inexperience. Nicholas Lemann wrote that George W. Bush has what might be the thinnest resume of any president in history, including those who served long before politician was a career choice. But foreign policy is even more of a hornet's nest than when GWB appeared, and I wonder if voters will entrust the path of a nation at war to a fortysomething.

That said, look at a list of 2008 presidential candidates ranked by age, oldest to youngest. Perhaps this is my youth showing, but I would say, even striving for objectivity, that the only serious candidate in the first half is McCain. Everyone else is young enough to have missed World War II entirely. The Un-Greatest Generation Strikes Back.

Gravel (who?): 1930
Paul (eh?): 1935
Tancredo (wha..?): 1935
McCain: 1936
Thompson: 1941
Biden: 1942
Dodd: 1944
Clark: 1944
Giuliani: 1944
Kucinich: 1946
Richardson: 1947
Romney: 1947
Clinton: 1947
Gore: 1948
Gimore: 1949
Vilsack: 1950
Edwards: 1953
Sharpton: 1954
Huckabee: 1955
Brownback: 1956
Obama: 1961