The Benefit of Barack’s Youthful Magnetism

All politicians follow a script. A block set of stump lines in their minds. A stance they repeat over and over again with out precise details. But they give us dreams and visions of what America can be. And like sports, they get us talking and we side with our favorites.

Some though choose not to have a favorite, or choose not to care enough to investigate sides. Some choose to not even learn what the difference is between Democrat and Republican. They don’t have faith or concern, because they are seeing politics having no connection to their daily lives. They have seen what eight years of a bad politician can do, and they get discouraged.

Perhaps it's because there is the loss of creative idealism in politics. Or is it the youthful impulsiveness that is missed? People want things to be pragmatic, and mundane. You start talking big ideas and you get road blocks voiced to you quickly. Or, the degrading bad liberal finger pointing. Surely, for these reasons people change the channel and fail to get engaged.

The Barack Obama campaign though, overcomes these pitfalls, and then benefits from their choice to do so consequently. The opposition only can disagree with him because of his so called vagueness, and his youthfully dreamy campaign lacking experience.

Barack brings us a different politics. One that is young and new in places in between, offering the crazy idea of bringing government to the people. He offers to disclose the White House to the citizens, letting them know exactly what is going on. This shady concept of getting people involved in “the change" has people talking. An Idea that was not considered as an endeavor in the Clinton or past Bush campaigns.

Regardless of the political game that we see being played, who wins wins. That individual becomes one of the most powerful people in the world. At times this scares grown ups, because they can’t conceptualize a turn around. They either fear that Obama would let us down, or do something risky with all these substanceless ideas that will hurt America even more.

But Obama is still winning regardless, strangely getting more mature voters
too. He achieves this with a strait record of voting against and opposing what got America into trouble to begin with. He goes after the young creative minds that have not been spoiled yet from years of conservative rules. From there he draws them into his campaign. Youthful and steadfast like Bobby was.

Even despite Barack's admittance to drug use in his teens, he is a success. And he is not afraid to share that part of his life with you regardless of risking political suicide. He is confident enough to climb that wall. Youth can learn from him. They don’t learn anything nor do they trust a guy like Bush who lied about his youth. They would not learn anything meaningful from his stories anyway, of Yale parties and getting away with fraternity mischief.

Simply, Barrack Obama comes off as a mentor and a as a bit of a hero to our youth in this decade. And his youth works to his advantage. What a political rebel he is. There is a magnetism that revolves around him. A macrocosm from the heart that pulls in young people spreading a vibrant, dashing, colorful variance. Reaching out -- something the other politicians can't offer during this time of need, or can't offer as well as Obama . Something that gets us all excited about politics once again. And amazingly he could very well be our next Commander-in-Chief. Do you have butterflies in the stomach like I do?

Andrew Thibodeau
Poitical Advisor for the ICDP