Obama Signals End of Boomers' DC Reign

Baby boomers will lose Washington next week to a new, more pragmatic generation. But which one that is seems up for debate, reports the AP. At 47, Barack Obama is a tad too young for boomers—whose partisan politics are informed by civil-rights marches and sexual liberation—but too old to be cynical Generation X. “He’s more like a generational bridge,” says an analyst

“Boomers were flower children out changing the world. We were wide-eyed, not tie-dyed,” adds Jonathan Pontell, who’s dubbed Obama’s cohort Generation Jones, as in “jonesing” for something more. Obama’s executive team—a hodgepodge of Clintonites, Republicans, and his own Jonesers, also called the Cusp Generation—attests to the bridge metaphor. Whatever the label, “Obama’s a rock star,” Pontell adds, “and people are dying to call him one of their own.” (More Barack Obama stories.)