Huddle.(The Talk of the Town)(Generation Obama)

Last week, members of the steering committee for Generation Obama--a grassroots group that organizes young professionals--held an after-work meeting in a conference room at a marketing firm on Third Avenue. The theme was reaching out. "The name of the next fund-raiser is Let's Keep GOing," said Jeremy Goldberg, the group's leader, who is thirty-one and has dark curly hair and a baby face, and is working on a master's in international finance at Columbia. "That's capital 'G,' capital 'O.' Some people find it cheesy. I find it appealing."

There was no conference table, and the meeting was conducted in a support-group-style circle of office chairs. "It's significant that we're meeting now, right in Hillary Clinton's back yard," Goldberg said. "Many of us have friends on the other side, and we need to think about how to make room for them going forward." The group brainstormed about potential summer events: an Obama gallery tour, a beach party ("We did nothing in the Hamptons last year. I'm just throwing that out there"). Bridget Guarasci, a Ph.D. candidate writing her dissertation on Iraqi politics, ran through plans for the upcoming fund-raiser: rooftop fire pit, Facebook blasts, "Obama-tinis." Anuj Mathur, who works at a hedge fund, suggested a way to attract more finance guys: "I think it's good to say 'fire pit' in the e-mail," he said.

Todd Sutler, a third-grade teacher at the Bank Street School, raised his hand. "Can we talk a little bit about how to lay it on the Clinton people?"

"We don't want to be dancing in the end zone," Goldberg said. "Our plan is to sit down and have a drink with them, and, if they tell us they want to take leadership roles in the campaign, that's great."

Sutler said, "But they still might be thinking they have a chance."

Afterward, on the way to a sushi place for cold sake, the conversation turned to foreign policy, an area that ...