By now, everyone has heard the comparisons being used to depict the Democratic presidential nomination race. There seem to be thousands of them.

• Hillary Clinton is Dunkin’ Donuts. Barack Obama is Starbucks.
• Hillary is a PC. Obama is a Mac.
• Hillary is prose. Obama is poetry.
• Hillary is analog, Obama is digital. (Which doesn’t work because analog records still definitely sound good and have their place)

Those comparisons only tell part of the story.

A more effective comparison is that Hillary Clinton is VHS, while Barack Obama is DVD.

VHS definitely had it’s day. It beat out all its competitors (like Betamax), and stayed on top of the game for some time. It got the job done during its day. Not too long after its inception, however, we knew that bigger and better things would eventually come along. We knew someday we would outgrow the format. Someday relatively soon… at least many of us hoped.

Then DVD comes along. After a couple failed attempts (ahem, Laser Disc), people thought that the format was too good to be true. It sounded better. It looked better. Everything about it seemed to make it a vastly superior product. Despite the legitimacy of DVD, people remained skeptical. While some consumers took the DVD plunge and reaped the benefits, others stuck by the tried and true dinosaur format of VHS.

The skeptics haters said things like:

• “I’ve invested so much in tapes, and they’ve always been dependable. I think I’ll just stick with these tapes for a few more years. No need to change yet.”
• “Why should I go for change? Could VHS be better? Sure, but it’s always worked for me. I think I’ll play it safe for now.”
• “DVD looks and sounds pretty, but does it actually work? How can one little disc accomplish all that stuff? There’s no way it can do all that.”

It took some time, but after a while the entire nation realized that we had outgrown VHS and its limited abilities. We moved on to DVD and never looked back.

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Something I read today has really drawn my ire.

In Jake Trapper’s “And Obama Wept,” he offers the viewpoint that “Obama supporters’ exuberance seems to be getting a little out of hand.” He points out others — like Felix Gillette, James Wolcott, Joe Klein and Kathleen Geier — who share the same POV. Some even go as far as to blast Obama supporters for worshiping him like he’s Jesus.

Excuse me, but fuck anyone who shares that opinion and the horses they rode in on. There’s a big difference between being part of a cult and being a part of a movement. It’s not our problem that you’re a bunch of jaded political hacks.

Why does this piss me off so bad? Because every election cycle I hear older people bitch and moan about how young people aren’t active enough in politics, and suddenly we are too active. WTF? I’m still pretty young, so that deeply offends me. Do a somewhat see their point? Sure, I guess, but there actually is something messianic about him to us. Especially after we’ve faced seven-going-on-eight years of George W. Bush.

Is he God? No, of course not. He’s not going to actually break bread or walk on water. So, no, we don’t believe he’s Jesus. What we do believe, however, is that he is our future. He isn’t the redelivery of God’s only begotten son — he’s the re-delivery of hope for my generation.

What’s my generation? I was born a week before Christmas, 1979. That makes me 29, and basically in between Generation X and Y. I guess I’m both the death rattle of Gen X and a Gen Y elder statesmen. It’s with both of those generations in mind that I respond to this “cult” bullshit.

No offense to the Baby Boomers and their parents, but their days of dominating the political landscape are over. They aren’t the ones who will have to face the next half century and the challenges it brings. The under-40 crowd will; That’s why I’m so irked at getting blasted for fervently rallying around the one candidate who can boldly lead us against the challenges like no other could. We might indeed be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but we’ve also been waiting to rally around someone like Barack Obama.

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