Presidential Election Trends - Where We Are in 2008

In looking at the two candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, clearly these politicians are from different generations.

In my time spent talking with people in and around primarily conservative eastern North Carolina, I am decidedly in a red region of a red state. Or am I?

North Carolina is a very diverse state with mountains on one side and the beach towns on the other side. There are also the population centers of Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro and Winston-Salem. There’s still the agricultural influence with farming towns all over, the Outer Banks, and a large mix of government employees, medical and scientific research in the RTP, and plenty of institutions of higher learning. Closer to where I live is the area around Ft. Bragg, which is expected to grow significantly over the next three years as military bases consolidate. North Carolina is no longer a state of textile mills, tobacco fields, NASCAR and pro rasslin.’

A recent trip to Black Mountain, NC (Asheville) to visit another recent transplant from South Florida revealed an area in and around Asheville that has or is in the process of adopting “green” ordinances and practices. Maybe it’s the influence of outside money and culture that has come into the area, but nevertheless the area has taken on a trend that wouldn’t probably be so welcoming to Junior Johnson running moonshine around its mountain roads, spilling oil everywhere while his cigar butts were thrown out of the window. Traveling through Winston-Salem, NC once a month, I notice how clean the city is and no longer pokes out its chest as the cigarette capital of the western world. Nearby Durham, NC has converted a former American Tobacco Co. factory into an urban complex of offices, shops and restaurants. The old smokestack remains, one presumes out of a desire for nostalgia – and a sense of place - with the “Lucky Strikes” logo prominently displayed.

I mention all this because North Carolina, as many other “swing states” in this election, is undergoing a transformation from Red State to Blue State, as a new healthy voting bloc has emerged and that voting bloc is showing up at political rallies all across the country. Many included in this new voting bloc are 18-28 year olds, born since 1980, raised on video games, MTV, and the excesses and materialism of the 80’s and 90’s. They have not seen their parents struggle to make ends meet, and they have not witnessed or grasped sacrifices made by those who came before them to provide them with freedoms that only a small percentage of people enjoy worldwide. This is certainly not to say this generation has been spolied and unattended to - many have seen struggles, they have seen their parents go through periods of unemployment, and they are looking for something other than what's been offered up the better part of their lives.

Aligning in this new voting bloc is also a contingent of educators, union employees, African Americans, lifelong Democrats, and new converts who have become disillusioned by what’s been perceived as a total failure of the Bush Administration in leading the country during the last eight years.

There is a new generation of voters who’s preparing to sweep in a new era of politics on the national stage. For this generation, gone is the perceptive old style, backroom, secretive political maneuvering resulting in politicians or politician’s friends getting their pockets lined at taxpayer expense. I am not so sure that age requirements aren’t part of that acceptance going forward.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was a virtual lock in conventional circles to become the next president. She was the first casualty of this new movement, rejected handily with little or no chance for return to national prominence. The second casualty, in my honest assessment, is little more than three weeks away.

Hillary’s shouts of “Obama can’t win” was fodder enough for Obama supporters to prove this message not only wrong but an ignorant political ploy and slighting the power of their candidate. Coupled the new electorate’s voting power with the dismay of the Republicans’ performance over the last eight years (many Republicans have vowed to simply stay home or vote third party), and the message is clear.