One of the side stories to Obama's appeal among the youth is that he's actually, well, cool. He brushes his shoulder off and plays Fantasy Football and says things like "give it up." Most "youth" candidates -- think Howard Dean or Ron Paul or Ralph Nader -- are not cool. And this has an actual effect. There's lots of chatter in the media about Sarah Palin's ability to speak the "language" of the conservative base, or of rural America, and how that matters. Obama's tendencies are dismissed as somewhat frivolous affectations. But Obama is speaking in a language familiar to younger Americans -- he's the first candidate who is recognizable to that generation, and my sense is it's going to manifest in two weeks, where the youth actually do turn out for him, rather than proving a disappointingly unreliable constituency as they have in the past.
