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A President, if artful, can transcend mere policy and become an avatar of an era. What difference will the final ascension of the baby-boom generation make in terms of the American spirit, the cultural zeitgeist? The irresistible Kennedy parallel would suggest that the symbolism of a Clinton presidency could someday outweigh its concrete accomplishments. From fashion (a continually bareheaded J.F.K. decapitated the hat industry) to sports (touch football and 50-mile hikes) to dallying with movie stars (Marilyn Monroe suggestively cooing "Happy birthday, Mr. President"), Kennedy defined a style that was half Harvard and half James Bond. But J.F.K. spoke for a generation that craved a larger-than-life icon, a President who legitimized both its bravery in World War II and its man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit struggles to create the affluent society.
Baby boomers lack this palpable hunger for acceptance. "Unlike the Kennedy era," says Nicholas Lemann, author of The Promised Land, "Clinton's generation has already had its chance to make its tastes the country's tastes." Has it ever. Baby boomers -- especially the older ones like Clinton who were born in the 1940s -- have been pop-cultural imperialists since before Woodstock; the rest of America, like it or not, has had to endure their collective self-absorption as they metamorphosed from hippies to yuppies to competitive parenting. What is possibly left for them to gain from a Clinton presidency, other than perhaps good government? Hard to picture Clinton's peers celebrating their empowerment with buttons that defiantly declare DON'T TRUST ANYONE OVER 50. Or angrily marching on the White House chanting, "Hey, hey, Billy C., you've got a good job, how about me?"
The ascension of Clinton gives older baby boomers a psychological gift that some of them will be loath to accept -- irrefutable proof that they are mature adults. Like the Doonesbury character Zonker Harris, baby boomers have been indulging in the longest adolescence since Archie and Veronica. True, parenthood has tamed many of their rebellious impulses. But the full awareness of the fleetingness of youth -- even with Stairmasters and cosmetic surgery -- was postponed as long as the World War II generation walked the corridors of power. "Instead of being able to feel like we're still kids and having to look up at the generation running things, suddenly there's a guy your age who is President of the United States," says Paul Hirsch, a sociologist at Northwestern University. "This is the first time that the country has symbolically acknowledged that we baby boomers have it all figured out."