Slacker Republicans

It's long been my contention that, as in all matters, Baby Boomers will hold onto political offices until Millennials are ready to take them over, completely skipping my lazy-ass slacker Gen-X brethren.

It turns out some of us are getting elected -- especially as Republicans.

We're getting into the years when, by all rights, we slackers should be getting elected -- certainly to Congress, and even Senate. If you figure Gen-X started in 1964, some of us are in our mid-40s already.

That process should have been sped up considerably by the massive back-and-forth turnover of the past three election cycles. 

Well, right now only three US Senators are in that age range -- and all three were appointed, not elected. Cusp-slacker Michael Bennet ('64) and Kirsten Gillibrand ('67) -- both Democrats -- have won full terms. Republican placeholder George LeMieux ('69), to date the only Senator younger than me (Oct. '67), did not run.

But the Florida seat LeMieux was keeping warm goes to Marco Rubio ('71), who will come to DC along with Mike Lee ('71) of Utah and Kelly Ayotte ('68) of New Hampshire.

On the House side, Democrats had gotten up to 35 Gen-Xers in the current Congress (out of more than 250) by my count, but a bunch of them have now been booted. They'll have 27, by my count.

But Republicans went big -- half of their 82 freshmen (pending the last close counts) are Gen-X, giving them a total of 60 in the coming session. That's a quarter of their entire caucus.

I don't know if they plan to form a "Slacker Conference," but by God they should.

The only thing I'm unsure of is whether they're all actually Alex P. Keatons, as they really should be. I have a suspicion they're actually Andy Clarks. Any other suggestions?