Politico: A generation rises with Obama:

Obama is the first Gen X Presidential candidate — for better and for worse.

He’s the son of a baby boomer — his mother, Anne, was born in 1942 — and although his birth in 1961 puts him slightly ahead of the textbook mid-1960s start date of Gen X, he is the same age as the man who coined the term “Generation X,” author Douglas Coupland.

Like many Gen Xers, Obama is a child of divorce. His anthropologist mother embodied the restless drift and countercultural curiosity of the baby boomer generation. His grandparents’ lives were more typical of the “greatest generation” — with struggles through the Great Depression and then the Second World War, followed by a more conventional, even conservative, life.

His mother married a Kenyan; his grandparents voted for Nixon — Barack tried to bridge the divide.

Reconciling these generational tensions has been the unwelcome responsibility of Gen X. We have been living in the wake of the Boomers all our lives. We’ve benefited from the civil rights struggles and enjoyed the opening of our culture, from rock music to the sexual revolution.

But we’ve also experienced the fallout from their excesses — drug abuse, racial strife, fractured families, homelessness, AIDS, a decaying environment and dangerous inner cities. Gen Xers have been left to clean up after the Baby Boomers’ party, to put up with the societal growing pains, and try to reconcile the warring factions.

Jeff Gordninier: Generation X Saves the World:

Slackonmics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction

The youth vote came out in force in 2004. It will especially so this election cycle. As we go into this day – will it be enough? Will Gen X and Gen Y turn the page on on the last 30 years of politics by division?

Here’s to hoping. I think so. But if the numbers aren’t there – McCain wins.

Get out and Vote!