“We were coming of age in middle school and high school in era of fear and war,” said Gadi, the artist behind the Hope Lounge benefit. “Some of us had come of age and were still dealing with it, and there weren’t many of us who knew what politics was like or what government was like or certainly what governing was. Everybody thought everything would be fixed the next day.”
The skill of the Obama team was a factor as well, using social media to turn the campaign into political mixer for the postcollegiate set. They built on a lot of what the Howard Dean campaign had done in 2004. But whereas the Dean effort was mostly online, the Obama team used online organizing tools to get people to meet off-line.
“We didn’t have YouTube,” said Joe Trippi, Mr. Dean’s online organizing guru in 2004. “By the time Barack Obama started there were a hundred million people watching stuff on YouTube.”
Mr. Trippi doesn’t anticipate a fall-off in excitement for the president among the younger set this time around.
“The newness and the excitement is gone, and it would be hard to rekindle just because of the historic nature of the election,” he said. “But it’s definitely still there. Talk to me if Michelle Bachmann is the Republican nominee; then you’ll see how fired up everyone will be.”
Still, as Mr. Trippi acknowledges, an incumbent is never as much fun. Plus, this time around, those who jumped on the bandwagon early say that they expect “the pros” to take over in 2012. The local elected officials who backed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries have come to toe the party line, and those who passed out homemade cookies at polling sites in early 2008 say they expect to be shunted to the side. Life interferes too. One-time round-the-clock volunteers have to take full-time jobs. Children are born and parents become ill. Galleries get audited.
“The real power [of 2008] was giving people the tools to organize themselves, and then you had all of these self-forming groups,” said Mr. Fife. “It’s very different [now.] Now you have the power of being in the White House. It is going to take longer.”
Obama 2012 operatives say that they think that the lightning of 2008 can be bottled again. To those who say Mr. Obama hasn’t done much, they point to the health care overhaul, the stimulus, the ending of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. They point to a summer organizing program that has 12,000 applicants for 1,700 slots. Wait until the Republicans settle on a nominee. See how you like the thought of Mitt Romney in the Oval Office, and see, young gallerist, if you aren’t organizing another auction in spite of yourself.
“In 2008 we had unprecedented grass-roots support from young people across the country,” said Clo Ewing, a campaign spokeswoman. “On college campuses and cities across the country they mobilized to elect President Obama and we are seeing the same enthusiasm for 2012 evidenced by the thousands of young people who recently applied for our Summer Organizing program.”
Some are already gearing up again.
Matt Walters started volunteering for the campaign in April 2007, soon after Mr. Obama announced that he was running. By the fall, he was selling “Obamulkes,” Obama-inspired yarmulkes. He met his wife in New York headquarters. He is ready to go back out on the trail again.
“I get the sense that people of this generation are still excited about the president,” he said. “He’s just not new any more. He’s no longer a blank slate. He is going to have to run on his record, and he hasn’t even been campaigning. He’s been running the country and killing Osama bin Laden.”
dfreedlander@observer.com
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Seriously, what the hell is a hipster? Someone who lives in Brooklyn? An artist? A person in their 20s? Dudes with skateboards? Douchebags? People who fall for gimmicks? This article could have used a definition….
Author provided examples of hipsters throughout article without specifically defining hipster. What do you care what the hell a hipster is (unless you suspect you are one)?
Yeah, why would I care what a hipster is in this article entitled “O-Bummer! Hipsters O-Bandon Obama”
Obama 2012 operatives need to take a look again, at what they did for the people in their 20s and 30s who got them elected. What affects me? Health insurance until I’m 26. What else? So far, my subsidized grad school loans will be eliminated thanks to the budget crisis, most likely I won’t have clean water in my future since oil and coal industries run the country…
Word. And I still don’t have my free gas.
Nothing like a cold dose of reality to the face.
I submitted a post a few hours ago that blew this dumb article out of the water. It has not yet been posted. It looks like the NY Observer is engaging in cencorship.
They did not approve my highly critical comment either.
Censorship we can believe in!
Maybe they’re looking for people who are marginally proficient a spelling.
Fight cencorship.
Perhaps they are still spell-checking it?
all i can say is that maybe some of these people should of taken the time to read up on Mr. Obama and his stance on issues and they wouldn’t have been so surprised. Obama is nothing more and nothing less than Bill Clinton 2.0, but in a time where Bill Clinton 2.0 is not the best political strategy.
I thought he was Jimmy Carter 3.0. And Jimmy Carter was like the Herbert Hoover Droid.
What the hell is a “stenciling station”? This entire article made me feel stabby.
This article’s hipster cred is slightly undermined by spelling Shepard Fairey “Shepherd Fairy.”
I’m pretty sure it was an artistic choice on the author’s part. Conveying at once society’s inability to spell, and the apathy most emotionally healthy human beings have toward the misspelling of someone as useless as Sheepherder Fairy.
“ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO..”
What the ..I keep reading this and think you really have a code that hasn’t been shared.
I cannot resist just loving the cartoon pictorial. In my personal belief this is as close as a depiction as to what is really going on….Lets see what happens during the elections..
Dear bozos, What is the alternative?
Yeah right, vote 4 Mistershell Bachman/woman…
President Obama is responsible for Sonia Maria Sotomayor sitting on the US Supreme Court. Want another Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia making the decisions? Then sit on your hands.
“The newness and the excitement is gone, and it would be hard to rekindle just because of the historic nature of the election,” he said. “But it’s definitely still there. Talk to me if Michelle Bachmann is the Republican nominee; then you’ll see how fired up everyone will be.”
ALREADY HEARD THAT STUPID ARGUEMENT
Maybe because Obama is destroying the Country.. Some People just don’t study the canidates like the should, before voting.. I hope they have learned thier lesson..
don’t forget he killed bin laden!
And I thought hipsters were smart. Turns out they make idiotic voting decisions just like most the rest of us. ”He’s articulate!” ”He’s inspiring!” ”He’s black!” ”He’s cool!” Gag me.
And me.
all your base are… resist we much.
I remember when my daughter was in high school and at that age when her contempt for all things not cool was at its most condescending and her lack of patience with her parents view of the world at its highest I asked her what she wanted and expected from life. She replied “oh a nice apartment, a new car, and a few luxuries.”
I asked her how she expected to obtain these things and she looked at me as if I’d just stepped out of a space ship wearing a clown suit. There was simply no way of explaining to a dork like me that everybody that lived in her world, a world I could not by the nature of my being ever understand, just got these things as a matter of course, like getting wet in you stood in a running shower.
I realized that there was no way I would ever be able to explain to her in advance the lessons that life was going to teach her once she left home. Looking back, it took her about the same two and a half years that it has taken the Obamaites described in this article to understand that believing that you are cool will translate into material reality is the road to disappointment. They now understand that that road which appeared at first to be a smoothly paved highway with a special lane for the very hip was nothing but a movie set illusion painted on a backdrop and utterly lacking in substance.
wake-up.
its called having hope.
you start each day wondering if you should jump off a bridge??
jeez…you must be tons of fun to be around.
you could bring helium balloons to the ground.
no, its the difference between having a purpose with plan to get there and a wild expectation that everything you dream of will magically fall from above just for you.
Were the obamaites really looking to get into politics or were they just voting for someone because it was cool at the time? If they really wanted to make a change they would have gotten involved in helping local politicians, held rallies for the elected officials who affect them most. but then thats not cool, and sounds like a lot of work.
If obama had a plan to go along with his vision he could have accomplished much more. We’ve now witnessed what happens when a lot of energy is directed to no plan in particular, a freight train on ice.
Dude, like Wow, your reply was real cool. Cool words, like ‘wake up’ and ‘hope’ and …. and well like you know what I mean
Typical doofus hipster.
Bachmann-bashing and Romney-bashing, but no Perry-bashing? We’re going to need you to try a little harder.
I can’t define ‘hipster’, but I know one when I see one. Of course it’s tough for the 2008′ers. Look at what Obama ran on, his promises, look at what he’s followed through on. And that’s WITH 2 years controlling House and Senate. Basically, once again, we were lied to.
Hipsters are young people who “think” they know everything. If you ever have a chance to have a conversation with one of them you’ll find out they are not only ignorant on most current events, they are also small minded and stupid. In their efforts to “be cool”, they have no common sense or sense of responsibility, just like Obama. Living in the real world takes time and practice, something most hipsters choose not to do.
I pray no one votes for Obama – he has destroyed America enough!