I’ll equate editing the Harvard Law Review to the chimp caper, but the Master of Stentorian Vacuity has never administered anything, not even CPR, let alone the State of Fruits and Nuts.

Isn’t there some Graustark that will lend us a younger brother or a by-blow, so we can have a proper king?

Optimism means to always expect the best outcome, which is of course, ridiculous. There isn’t a word in English to describe a healthy positive outlook.

I had to concede that Reagan’s positive outlook (however vapid it appeared to me at the time) actually did some good for us. I think Obama could do the same.

I am a fairly liberal person. Generally, I agree with Obama’s substantive positions on political and social issues.

However, his rhetoric is self-evidently absurd. And yet most of the Democratic primary voters found him more reasonable and electable than Hillary–specifically for the absurd things he’s saying.

On top of this, Obama base comes from a fervent group of young, educated, professionals. In other words, the smart voters are the ones to be most likely taken in by these vapid cliches.

I find it ironic that Obama, not Bush, has fully converted me to a misanthrope. H.L Mencken was prescient it would seem.

[W]hen a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental–men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… [A]ll the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre–the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron

Exit polls have shown 18-25 year olds making up anywhere between 7-12% of the electorate in both parties. 18-29 usually accounts for a total of maybe 18-20% In other words, not nearly as many are voting as could be, and “the youth vote” is still turning out at lower rates. As you say, this is not necessarily a bad thing at all.