The Kids Are Alright...

WASHINGTON — Drawn by the war in Iraq and an uncertain economy, college students are showing more interest in politics this year than they did in 2000, and they favor Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry over President Bush by 13 percentage points, according to a poll released Thursday by Harvard University.

Voter turnout among young people has fallen steadily since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972. But in the new poll, 84% of students said they would "definitely be voting" this year, compared with 50% who said so in the spring of 2000, when the Harvard Institute of Politics began surveying the population.

...but what about mom and dad?

There's a lot of talk about which demographics will vote how. Women, blacks and youth get a lot of attention, but I'm not a member of any of those, and it would be a bit presumptuous, I think, for me to speak for, or even to, any of those.

I am, though, a member of a group that can make a difference, one that has, and one that arguably has the greatest responsibility of all to rechart the course of our ship of state this year.

I'm a baby boomer, and there's a whole big bunch of us. GW is one of us, and we have to take responsibility for that by turning out in order to throw him out. If you're one of us, you must share my dismay that he's become the representative of our generation's leadership.

I can't issue a better call to arms than the one put forward by a man who is a cultural hero to every right thinking member of my generation, the inimitable Dr. Hunter S. Thompson...

We were angry and righteous in those days, and there were millions of us. We kicked two chief executives out of the White House because they were stupid warmongers. We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped on Richard Nixon -- which wise people said was impossible, but so what? It was fun. We were warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river.

That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.

There are still millions of us. We have a job to do. If we don't do it, how are we going to face the kids?

Get angry again. Act righteously again. It's our responsiblity.