Boomers Rewrite Candidate Profile

During the Republican convention, in a foreshadowing of his campaign strategy, Bob Dole derided the Clinton administration as “an elite corps who never grew up, never served, never did anything real and never suffered.” The line resonated because many people suspect a grain of truth underlies this view of the first baby boomer president and the young team that came into office with him in 1992. What they do not grasp so readily and what Dole neglected to add is that this sweeping characterization could apply equally to the Republican Congress of 1994 or to either political party in 1996. The Democrats, in other words, do not have a lock on privileged, sheltered boomers who never went to war.

The distinction between those who served and suffered and those who did not divides along generational lines, not along party politics. For example, Al Gore, a Democrat, served in Vietnam (as a press officer) while Jack Kemp, a Republican, did not; Kemp got a deferment for a shoulder injury even though he continued to play professional football. Tough-talking Pat Buchanan never served a day in the military, nor did Newt Gingrich; like Bill Clinton, they managed to avoid the draft. Kemp, Gore, Buchanan, Gingrich and Clinton all typify the choices made by the young men of their age cohort. In contrast, World War II infantryman Bob Dole, like the naval pilot George Bush (but unlike the actor Ronald Reagan, who never put on a uniform outside a Hollywood studio), represents the paradigm for his generation,

To put it another way: In 1941, Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich would most certainly have served in our armed forces. In 1967, Bob Dole or George Bush might well have obtained a deferment.

While World War II forged a clear national consensus about fighting the good fight, Vietnam split the nation in half and left a legacy of continuing bitterness and ambivalence.

The point is not that one political party has a monopoly on patriotism or self-sacrifice, but that each era produces its own pattern of heroic action and moral behavior. For the baby boomers, the trauma of Vietnam exploded the old model of heroism and gave us a generation of anti-heroes instead. Many came to admire the long-haired veteran throwing his medals into the Potomac in protest against the war or later, the crusading journalists who defied establishment conventions and brought down a president.

The ironic post-Vietnam era reached its apogee with the election of Clinton as president, the first truly representative leader of the confessional, anti-heroic generation that grew up without the privations of World War II and the Great Depression--and with television. We are now in an era when simply suffering one’s way through the stages of life--growing up in a dysfunctional family, getting and staying married, finding and keeping a job, bringing up children, coping with elderly parents--seems to furnish a kind of national drama, replacing the great military and ideological battles of yore.

Clinton is the first but certainly not the last of the boomer politicians who earned their spurs in nonmilitary arenas. Since the end of the draft in 1973 and with the increasing number of women in elective office, military service has become an option, not a prerequisite. Yet the public still looks for some demonstration of public service in candidates.

The problem is that no consensus exists today for what constitutes Dole’s serving, suffering and doing something real. One could call it a crisis of role models. Fewer men can boast of surviving the traditional male proving ground of battle. So who should a contemporary American political hero--or anti-hero--look like? A professional athlete like Jack Kemp or Bill Bradley? A businessman like Ross Perot? An attorney like Hillary Rodham Clinton? A working mother like Susan Molinari?

Our boomer ambivalence mirrors our own self-doubt. Perhaps if we could say how each of us has served, suffered and done something real, we might feel more comfortable with our leaders. They are, after all, just a reflection of us.