Official portrait of President Obama
A look at the incoming Obama Administration shows it is not quite as young as people might think, especially when it comes to matters of war. There's a distinct tinge of gray to his incoming cabinet and senior advisers.
The average age, according to an analysis of the dates of births of 36 key players, including Brack Obama himself and Vice President Joseph Biden, is just over 53. Average year of birth = 1954 ... and a half.
The oldest member of the Obama team is Paul Volcker, named to the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, born in 1927. The youngest, born in 1981, is the president's director of speechwriting, Jonathan Favreau.
A lot is being made of the notion that Obama represents a new, younger generation of politics, that his inauguration next week represents the passing of Baby Boomers as the generational seat of power.
But the wonks can't separate the Baby Boomers from the new administration as easily as they might want. The Baby Boomer influence is far from dead in the upcoming administration.
Demographers define the Baby Boomers as the post-World War II generation born 1946 to 1964. But demographic revisionists seek to draw a distinction between those on the front side of the Baby Boomer generation (1948 to 1954) and those on the back side, born between 1955 and 1964 as not sharing the same history and therefore not the same political ideologue.
Obama, born in 1961, while a Baby Boomer by demographic definition, does not consider himself a Baby Boomer; he does not share the partisan ideology of a generation bred on the politics of the Vietnam War era.
PR maven Marian Salzman, in a piece on CNN.com, sees Obama and other late Boomers as the Cuspers. Trend marketer Jonathan Pontell has long called it Generation Jones.
If you consider 1955 as their theoretic dividing line, 15 members of the Obama Administration were born before 1955; 21 were born in 1955 or later.
It's interesting to take a look at his War Cabinet. He will definitely rely on an older group of advisers when it comes to war and national security:
Leon Panetta, CIA Director, year of birth 1938
Joseph Biden, Vice President, 1942
Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, 1943
James Jones, National Security Advisor, 1943
Dennis Blair, National Intelligence Advisor, 1947
Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, 1947
The youngest of the bunch is Janet Napolitano, Director of Homeland Security, born in 1957.
Average age of the War Cabinet? Almost 62.
Also, 2010 will be a busy year for 50th birthday parties in the Oval Office. More members of the inner circle -- six -- were born in 1955 than any other year, including:
Ron Kirk, Trade Representative
Karen Mills, Small Business Administration
Mary Shapiro, Securities & Exchange Commission
David Axelrod, White House Senior Advisor
Carol Browner, Energy Tsarina
Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior
Also note: The averages above would have skewed a little bit higher in age had Bill Richardson not withdrawn as a candidate for commerce secretary. He was born in 1947. We'll have to see who Obama picks to fill the only void left in his cabinet.
Special Report: Inauguration Day 2009
My spreadsheet on the Obama Administration's "Who Was Born When"
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