Here’s one way to look at the 2008 election: The Old White Guys who were running things got fired.

There’s George Bush, the MBA Presidency and all his OWGs running the war and the economy.

There’s Mike Easley. Bev Perdue spent the final weeks of her campaign promising “change orders” on day one to put as much distance as possible between herself and Easley.

Bev herself had to diversify her transition team after critics said it was too heavily OWG.

Then there are the OWGs from the business world – formerly known as Masters of the Universe – being hauled before Congress and publicly humiliated for wrecking the financial system and the automobile industry.

Look at the coalition that elected Obama: He won nearly all African-Americans, two-thirds of Hispanic voters, voters under 30 by 2-1 and more than half of women. In other words, a coalition of non-whites, non-old and non-males.

This is bad news for businessmen who have pretty much had their way in Washington since Ronald Reagan took office in 1980.

Being OWGs, they won’t get it. They probably think that – when it comes to politics – they can still drive Cadillac SUVs in a Prius world.

Now, I’m probably considered an OWG myself. But I’m actually a member of the smallest minority in America: a middle-aged, affluent, golf-playing, Southern white male who is also a liberal Democrat.

There are five of us at North Ridge. I know them all. We play golf together.

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