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Even so, Baby Boomers can be found quietly agitating for change in small, direct ways. "They are on the local school boards, the neighborhood committees, the grass-roots movements," says Atwater. A striking example of grass-roots success is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, founded by Candy Lightner, 40, after her teenage daughter was killed by an intoxicated motorist in 1980. MADD is largely responsible for toughening the drunken-driving laws and raising the drinking age in 38 states. Arlene Joye, 35, took a $15,000 pay cut when she left her job as a director of a pay-TV subscription service in Los Angeles to work full time for MADD as an executive assistant. "I take so much from life," she says. "Now I finally feel I'm putting something back."
Still making a social statement out of rock 'n' roll, Baby Boomers in huge numbers flock to concerts like Live Aid and Farm Aid. "Instead of running for office to abolish hunger, they go out and feed somebody," says University of Massachusetts Public Service Professor Ralph Whitehead Jr. "Baby Boomers are highly skeptical of institutional tools. They believe in J.F.D.I.--just frigging do it." And even if charity concerts have not proved to be the most efficient or speedy way to channel money to the poor and helpless, for many Baby Boomers joining hands and swaying to the music of a megarally evokes the good old days, when it was possible to have a social conscience and fun at the same time.
As the Baby Boomers reach the age of responsibility not only for their families but for the country, their leaders are disconcertingly difficult to identify. The heroes of their youth, Kennedy and King, are gone, and their charisma and idealism sometimes seem to have died with them. When the Princeton class of '69 was asked ten years later whom they most admired, the leading choice was "Nobody." To be sure, the generation has produced a few able young politicians like Senator Gore, but he is still very much a junior Senator in a minority party, hardly a national figure. The presidential aspirants who most openly court the Baby Boom voters--Democrat Gary Hart and Republican Jack Kemp--are 49 and 50 years old, respectively. It would not be surprising if a Baby Boom leader emerged from outside the political realm, but none pops to mind--even if Bruce Springsteen might carry the young blue collar vote.
Yet it is worth remembering that as John F. Kennedy turned 40, he was still a somewhat callow politician being maneuvered by his domineering father. When Kennedy was elected President in 1960, he was 43, and his generation, the Baby Boomers' parents, was just coming to power.
The Best and the Brightest of Kennedy's day fought World War II to save the possibilities of freedom, helped rebuild war-ravaged Europe as a bulwark of the West and launched the world's free-market economies on the greatest surge of growth ever. Even if the tragedy of Viet Nam is entered on the debit side, this record of achievement remains a challenge for their children to match.