On May 14, 2008, at 7:45 AM, James Heartfield wrote:
> It says two things to me: that attitudes on race have softened a
> lot; and that the yearning for leaders who are different from the
> old set up is pretty strong.
On the first, there's been a pretty strong generational shift. West Virginia has the third-highest median age of any state; Pennsylvania is fifth. An important part of Hillary's base has been older white provincials in areas of economic decline. As ugly as their sentiments can get, they're a fading force.
A desire for contentless "change" is an ancient trope of American politics, and some of that is probably behind the current political mood, but younger people are sounding a lot more "progressive" than any previous cohort - and not just on social issues, but on economic ones as well. For more:
<http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/05/pdf/ progressive_generation.pdf>.
Doug