Vulture droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.
My intent had been to treat each of the items in this post as an individual post, but my goodness! My life has been C-R-A-Z-Y lately, with too many irons in the fire and too little sleep. Additionally, the election is less than a week away, and every last one of these items will be stale effective Tuesday evening. This is the most importantest post ever!
First, let's talk the about the generation that could end up deciding this election. No, I'm not talking about those bastards in the baby boom generation. They can bite me. Their day is past. No, my friends - this is the dawning of the Age of the Generation Jones!
"WTF?", says you. "What is 'Generation Jones'? Who is 'Generation Jones'?"
Generation Jones (or GenJones for short) is that group of people born between the Baby Boom and Generation X. I couldn't begin to pinpoint when one generation ends and another begins, but trust me, if you weren't in high school by 1970 and graduated from high school by 1982, chances are you're a GenJoneser.
According to Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune and Peter Fenn of The Hill, Generation Jones may have been the deciding factor in the 2004 election (please don't hold that against us!) and will, in all likelihood, be the deciding factor this year.
This is big. For decades we've been lumped in with the Baby Boom a-holes. Now we FINALLY have our own identify and have emerged from the gargantuan shadow of that generation to be a force in our own right! You'd better recognize the power of GenJones! Bwah hah hah!
Okay...so where exactly is GenJones leaning this particular election? According to Clarence Page, towards...undecided, particularly the women.
"I think Generation Jones is the most Republican-leaning generation in the electorate," said Pontell, a Southern Californian, in a telephone interview. "We were witnesses, not participants—wide-eyed, not tie-dyed—in the 1960s."Okay, so we're Team Elephant-leaning (count me out on THAT one - my team is neither Donkey nor Elephant!). Our women can't make up their minds. But (and what an amazing but this is) WE are going to be deciding this election.
What does this mean for 2008? A lot, especially if the poll numbers tighten, making the still-undecided independent swing voters even more important.
A mid-October Associated Press poll, for example, found middle-age white women to be more undecided yet also more "persuadable" than any other age bracket. Only about 55 percent had made up their minds about who they were going to vote for and they were almost evenly split between McCain and Obama.
We'll probably eff it up.....
Tip of the beak to xfloggingkylex for pointing out this amazing site - CitizenJane Politics. This is an actual, bona fide BALANCED presentation of election news and information on the candidates, presented ably and with occasional humor. Yes, the site is targeted at women, but don't let that stop you from checking it out. I wish Big Media (the BM for short) would show even half of the even-handedness shown by this site. Hell, I wish the BM would put away the effing Obama pom-poms and start reporting actual news instead of cheer leading for their candidate! MFers!
Coming up in future posts that have be to completed pre-election:
- Journalists speak out against the overt Obama cheer leading by the BM
- Fear-mongering as a campaign tactic. Good Lord, the right wing blathering heads on talk radio are losing their minds right now!
- "Is Obama the antichrist?" and other crap found in my inbox
