The candidacy of Barack Obama has excited a whole new generation of previously disinterested young Americans. Though this large and swelling involvement of youth should set Democratic Party members singing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” some regular and older members seem averse to joining the movement and instead expect these young people to temper their idealism and switch allegiance to a candidate of their elders’ choosing.

This wave of change is not going to happen if the incipient enthusiasm of these young people is squelched; the bulk of the newly involved will drift into the dead center of an apathetic public that has little faith in any political party’s capacity to set this nation on a path that bodes a more promising and inclusive future for working and middle class, and destitute Americans.

Before good old Democrats let this happen, best they remember John F. Kennedy’s inaugural charge to the American people of his time: “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”

Sam Osborne

West Branch, Iowa