I'm with Dana, this whole generational analysis of politics is nuts. Andrew Sullivan may be very excited to see Barack Obama take us past the tawdry psychodramas of the Clinton years, but Andrew Sullivan was a happy and enthusiastic participant in the tawdry psychodramas of the Clinton years! And Sullivan isn't, so far as I know, a baby boomer! So clearly this isn't an issue of birthdays. Indeed, you can't evaluate individuals by way of their generations, or membership in large, varied groups. Broad trends do not predict individual outcomes (there's your stats lesson for the day). If you think an Obama presidency will be less contentious, you can ground that belief in Obama's rhetoric, his policy positions, his method of resolving political conflict, the relative contentiousness of the issue areas he wishes to focus on, or an analysis of the various forces that polarize politics and why they will give Obama a pass. The fact that Obama is 46, rather than 52, is really neither here nor there. --Ezra Klein
