And this is a short excerpt from a long article about this dynamic in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

'Millennial Generation' set to rock the vote

Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer

Sunday, April 20, 2008

No, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama hasn't been in the habit of wearing an American flag on his lapel.

Yes, he's got some controversial acquaintances and has made some slipups lately about working Americans who "cling" to religion.

So won't it be easy for Republican Sen. John McCain, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - and the media - to keep painting Obama as an ultraliberal elitist who is out of touch with American values and working people?

In another era - when Baby Boomers were the overwhelmingly dominant generation - maybe so.

But with just two days until Pennsylvania kicks off the final round of primaries, political observers say there's clear evidence that the election of 2008 represents a new universe - and a new generation - when it comes to White House contests. And the political phenomenon of Barack Obama is symbolic of the game-changing attitudes and growing influence to be wielded by the upcoming generation of "Millennial" voters - the largest and most diverse generation in American history, born between 1982 and 2003 - who already are helping to shape the race.

Authors Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, who just released "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics," a book that examines the seismic generational and cultural realignments at play on the political stage this year, say the political pileups of the past week represent a perfect example of how the 20-somethings have managed to reshape conventional politics in the current race for the White House.

There was Obama's brouhaha over the "bitter" comments in San Francisco - fueled by Clinton, McCain and the media - followed by a rough Philadelphia debate in which Clinton got tough and ABC moderators got tougher, peppering him about his recent stumbles and gaffes.

That looked to be a perfect storm that might have swamped a first-time presidential candidate, but it wasn't Obama who took the body blows. Instead, ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson, the journalists, were publicly pummeled for "gotcha games," and Clinton came away with nary a new superdelegate in her pocket.
Nothing sticking

Meanwhile, Obama literally brushed it all off as the old way of doing things, while both Pennsylvania and national polls appear to suggest that none of it has stuck to him. Indeed, he looks even stronger, said Winograd, a former senior adviser to Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration.

Twenty-somethings "are driving the presidential race in a huge way," said Annemarie Stephens, an organizer for the youth-oriented "Nation for Change" rally to celebrate Obama's campaign today at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland. The event, which will star gospel, hip-hop and ethnic musicians - like similar rallies planned in nearly all 50 states today - has been put together almost entirely on the Internet, she said.

"People are concerned about the well-being of this country," she said. "It's no longer politics as usual; we're not going to stand for the pettiness."

Jordan D'Amato, 20, a political science major at UC Berkeley and one of the "Millennial Generation," says coming of age in an era of the two-term presidency of George W. Bush has had a clear impact on his political outlook.

"I think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and there have been monumental failures, like the war in Iraq," the health care system and the economy, he said.

Obama, he said, has "run a very successful campaign so far, proposing a message of hope" to address those issues.

"So when he makes a slipup, and people point out his relationship to Jeremiah Wright," the senator's controversial former pastor, "you say, 'Yes, he has faults.' " But, D'Amato said, Obama isn't influenced by pundits and politicians "trying to pick him apart."

The apparent inability of Clinton and McCain to influence voters like D'Amato and blunt Obama's trajectory underscores the different world and political view of the "Millennial Generation," which some have suggested looks increasingly like the "Obamanation."

Unlike their Boomer parents - those millions of 50- and 60-something activists born of protest and conflict who accept politics as a blood sport - the younger generation has come of age in an era of burgeoning new technologies providing tangible evidence of the promise of change.

"Unlike the conservative Gen-Xers who preceded them, or the harshly divided Baby Boomer Generation, the Millennials are united across gender and race in their desire to find win-win solutions to America's problems," Winograd and Hais write.