Obamamania: the generation game

Most of us weren't there to check, but it's probably safe to assume that Edinburgh student unions didn't have to adopt a "one in, one out" policy on the night George Bush sealed his second presidential term in 2004. The queue stretching across Bristo Square last Tuesday evening, as much as the lines of voters that snaked around countless blocks in cities and towns across America, was a potent symbol of the unprecedented enthusiasm generated across the world by Barack Obama's run for the US presidency.

On recent evidence, our interest in another country's general election should have been limited. Forty years after the 1968 demonstrations gave students a central place on the world's political stage, political engagement at Britain's universities is at a low ebb. Student politicians, often written off as self-seeking irrelevances, are left to preside over glum general meetings that frequently have too few people in attendance even to pass a motion. Barely more than a third of 18 to 24-year-olds voted in the 2005 general election, with a vast majority telling one survey that they considered politicians to be "much of a muchness." Yet in Edinburgh's late-night bars last Tuesday night, any self-respecting student was to be found glued to the election coverage, amid the kind of feverish atmosphere that usually accompanies only glorious British failures in international football.

President Obama will be a disappointment, to some extent. His rueful gag last month about his journey from Krypton showed a recognition of the absurdly high expectations with which he is burdened, even as America's economy slides into a catastrophic downturn that will stretch his campaign pledges to the limit. Whole swathes of the hitherto worshipful media will turn against him as soon as it becomes profitable to do so. And if this youth icon fails to shake up the Washington status quo any more than his predecessors, the resultant disillusionment could leave young people's views of politicians even more jaded than before.

But there's no denying that Obama stands out from the crowd, as far as the world's youth are concerned. Every teenager has experienced the passing conceit that he or she might be possessed of the energy and ideas to have a profound impact on the world. Obama's allure for the young stems perhaps in large part from the quintessentially youthful character of his appeal to a higher good.

It all sounded buttock-clenchingly cheesy to those convinced they'd heard it all before. In a February edition of the Financial Times, a month after Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses saw him unveil his "yes we can" mantra for the first time, Gideon Rachman lambasted the Democratic hopeful for his "lousy, empty speeches." "The 'audacity of hope?'" sneered Rachman. "It would be genuinely audacious to run for the White House on a platform of despair."

This reductio ad absurdum was flogged to death by the Clinton campaign, and failed miserably. None would deny that a phrase like "yes we can to opportunity," abstracted from its context, sounds flimsy at best. But Obama has oozed substance throughout his campaign, his calm, measured arguments convincing luminaries from Colin Powell to Warren Buffett that his are the hands to guide America through what could well be one of its rockiest periods. Far from reflecting a shallow outlook, Obama's soaring rhetoric completes the package: particularly among young voters, it enabled a coupling of sensible policy with an infectious message of collective empowerment, leaving even foreign observers feeling as though they had a stake in the forthcoming changes that he unrelentingly promised.

Sure, Obama is a media mogul's dream, a Rolling Stone cover boy, literally a pop star ever since Will.i.am's musical treatment of the "yes we can" speech hit the web. It's doubtful that Obamamania will substantially boost the miserable turnout at the next round of student association AGMs at Edinburgh's universities, and Gordon Brown's scrabble with David Cameron over which is Obama's best British buddy is unlikely to endear them to young voters any more than the latter's Converse trainers.

Yet the potential impact of such an emphatically fresh face at the top of the political pack should not be discounted. If Obama retains his charm—something far from guaranteed—those who instinctively dismiss politicians as "much of a muchness" might be tempted to reconsider. Has the Obama campaign effected a seismic shift in students' attitudes to politics? No – but it's a start.