Morley Winograd is executive director of the Center for Telecom Management at USC’s Marshall School of Business and is president and CEO of Morwin, Inc. a government reform consulting company. Michael D. Hais is retired as vice president of entertainment research at the communications firm Frank N. Magid Associates.

They first present evidence that about every 40 years America undergoes a political makeover. The one they predicted for 2008 is a turnover from an “idealistic” realignment to a “civic” turnover. The data for five major periodic turnovers between these two very different types of alignment is not new, but they present it in a very convincing manner in the 5 chapters of Part I – Cycles of American Politics – where they discuss the recent generations: “lost,” “GI,” “Baby Boomers,” “Silent,” “Gen X,” and the “Millennial.” Ch 4 is Meet the Millennials, approximately 42 million young Americans, of which half will be eligible to vote by 2012. The generations and how they have affected political realignments is well illustrated by a statement from the Introduction: “Realignments fueled by idealist generations, of which the Baby Boomers are the most recent example, result in decades of political gridlock, atrophy in governmental institutions, and an inability to resolve big societal and political issues and problems. By contrast, members of civic generations, of which the Millennials, and, in the previous generational cycle, the GI or ‘Greatest Generation’ are prime examples, result in periods of new governmental and societal institution-building and in resolution of major issues and problems.”

The five chapters of Part II – Transition to a New Era – focus on how the realignment begins, how it is affected by the “technology tsunami, and how social networks will change America’s political map. Part III – The New American Political Landscape – is predictive. Note that the hardcover edition of this book came out in March 2008 – thus well before the two main parties selected their candidates. Part III has 5 chapters: Ch 11: Triggering a New America. Ch 12: Who Will Party With Whom? Ch 13: Who Will Lead the Realignment? Ch 14: Rebuilding America’s Civic Infrastructure. Ch 15: Public Policy in a Millennial Era. They predict that the Millennials will play a dominant role in this new “civic”’ era, for they are strongly influenced by the new technologies (as their subtitle suggests).

I think that the quote from Neil Howe and William Strauss, authors of “Generations: The History of America’s Future,” sums up this eye-opening book: “Millennial Makeover builds a strong case for how today’s rising generation is poised to become a political powerhouse, reenergizing civic spirit and transforming both the substance and process of American politics. With new technologies, attitudes, and agendas, this generation could define the twenty-first century just as fundamentally as the G.I. Generation defined the twentieth. Winograd and Hais build a strong, historically rooted case for how this could unfold.” Now, one year later, we have seen how strong a role the Millennials played in many ways already in the 2008 election. I highly recommend this gift book, especially for non-Millennials, who may learn from it how they need to communicate effectively with the Millennial generation.