There is one explanation for Obama's Social Security and health care positions; generational politics. Potential young voters believe that Social Security will not be there for them and they resent the fact that the deductions they see in their meager paychecks will fund feckless Boomer 30-year retirements. And why should they buy health insurance when again their payments just fund the health care of old drug-addled hippies. I work with college students and know that these sentiments are not unusual.

I want to believe that Obama’s soaring rhetoric is appealing to something more than that. Then he adds the stuff about not going back to the tired old politics of the 90s or the generational wars of the 60s. I am a Boomer and I have to admit that he does have a point, we are largely responsible for Clinton and Bush. I want this nightmare to be over too.

I am also an Iowa Democrat and a month ago I was undecided but confidant that this field would produce a Democratic President who, along with a Democratic Congress, could begin to repair the damage that Republicans have done here and abroad. Now I am not sure I want to replace the generational wars of the 60s with the generational wars of the new millenium. After the students go home for break I am hoping that Obama will convince me that he is bigger than that. If not at least Edwards and Dodd have defined the issue in a way that we all can support; checking corporate power and restoring the proper role of government.