redblueamerica.com

A Kansas friend of mine writes about Obama's victory in Iowa:

I respect the opinions of my readers who have different politics, but I'd like them to consider that this is bigger than politics. This is not just (political) history; this is affirmation of our deepest values as a people--something I had come to fear we might have started down the darkening, descending way to losing.

The numbers indicate that much of Obama's support came from younger voters. I'm teetering on the edge of being in the 18-to-34 demographic -- I turn 35 in a couple of months -- but here's something I can tell you. We were born AFTER the Civil Rights movement; it's simply not part of our political memory. We grew up in a time when Martlin Luther King Jr. was revered, we were told in the classrooms that our black neighbors had as big a share in the blessings and governance of America as any white person, and overt racism was no longer acceptable in civilized society.

Now I'm not naive. I know there's plenty of non-overt racism to be found out there, that all our racial problems have not been solved. But you have two generations of voters out there now who grew up immersed in a culture that suggested to us a black man would win the presidency someday. People my age and younger aren't unaware of the significance of Obama's victory; we're just not so surprised.