While the Right blogosphere is hailing and the Left blogosphere is snarking at Senator McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Palin (See the round up at Instapundit), every observer I have seen so far has missed a real point.
The Republicans have no Baby Boomers on their Presidential ticket.
This also remarkable because neither major American political party picked Presidential front runners who are Baby Boom Southern White Males after 15 years of such men being President.
McCain, at 72, is a pre-boomer Arizonan of the "Traditionalist" generation -- those born between 1920 and 1945. They are the ones whose whole life was defined by the Cold War. They fought in the Cold War hell holes of Korea, Vietnam and dozens of other lesser known engagements. They saw John F. Kennedy assasinated and put a man on the moon. They are the generation with the highest current voting turn out percentages and they were the ones who were known as "Reagan Democrats."
McCain would be the Third American President from the "Traditionalist" demographic cohort, after Pres. James E. "Jimmy" Carter and Pres. George H. W. Bush.
Gov. Palin, at 44, is an Alaskan from the post Baby Boom "Generation X" demographic -- those born between 1965 and 1980. They are the generation of the personal computer, of AIDS, of Gay Rights, of collapsing labor unions, and of the Challenger Disaster. Their demographic was the "birth dearth" that resulted from both wide spread hormonal birth control ("The Pill") and "Roe v Wade."
Gov. Palin is the first of the Generation X demographic cohort to be selected for Federal Executive Office. She will not be the last.
What this says about America is for others to analyze.
I simply note the obvious reality of a "Post-Baby Boom" Republican Presidential ticket that the Main Stream Media and other bloggers seem to have missed.
Update: Poster Bart Hall pointed out that I missed Pres. Carter's birth date.