A bit late, but fascinating comment on Iowa Democratic caucus

I only came across this now. Penelope Trunk, who I read mostly for her advice on careers and managing work, has this on Iowa and the new generation of U.S. voters and activists:

My brother just started school at the University of Iowa, and this was his first caucus. He describes a room totally crammed full of young people: “It was basically all the students caucusing for Obama and the adults dispersing among the other candidates.”

In the end, in his Iowa City precinct, the students sat victorious at the Obama camp with 70% of the votes, while the caucuses for Edwards and Clinton were shouting over to the Kucinich supporters to abandon camp and come to them.

BTW, the image of Clinton and Edwards backers trying to reason with Dennis Kucinich supporters says it all.
Penelope follows this with:

This is a metaphor for the workplace. The young people have, effectively, shifted the balance of power to themselves, and the older people squabble between each other, as if their power structures still matter.

Millennials are fundamentally conservative

The victories of Generation Y will not look like the Boston Tea Party or Kent State. They will look like this Iowa caucus: Gen Y, playing by the rules, and winning.

Now think of Hillary Clinton and read Penelope's punchline:

This is not exactly the Civil Rights movement or grunge music. But Gen Y doesn’t need to rebel because, as I wrote in Time magazine, young people are already in the driver’s seat at the workplace. They can work within the established lines of business to get what they want, but they get it faster than we expect.

The gender divide is an antiquated view of the world

So many times I give a speech and explain to the room why women should not report sexual harassment. Invariably, the room divides. The millennials think the advice makes sense, the baby boomers are outraged.

Her problem is that "Hillary Clinton" is not the answer to a problem the new generation has. If Barack Obama was literally the hired help to stand in the group photo he would also be irrelevant.

Awesome. Read the whole thing.