Generational Candidates

1980 Campaign Poster
In a different Argus article about how the young might vote, reporter Jennifer Sanderson relates a point about "powerful" "generational effects" and the ghosts of "Vietnam and Watergate." This is an important matter that DVT will come back to. Senator Daschle went to college and turned 20 during the turmoil of 1968 and matured during the unraveling of the Vietnam war and Watergate, some of the darkest moments of the republic (don't miss Mark Kurlansky's new book, by the way, entitled "1968"). John Thune, on the other hand, who is much younger than Daschle, came of age when it was "Morning in America." When he was 20 and in college, Ronald Reagan was first inaugurated as President. Thune worked for the Senator who, in 1980, defeated George McGovern, the icon of '60s and '70s liberalism, who Daschle had supported and worked for. Behind all the TV ads, spin, and generic horse-race commentary, it must be remembered this generational divide lurks.