This could be a scene from a mid-1990s dorm room — or the recent musings of men who are vying to be the leader of the free world.
Welcome to the presidential race, Generation X style.
For the first time, multiple members of Generation X are running for president. These men came of age during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the fall of Communism, the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 24-hour news cycle. They quote the movies and music of their youth and connect with those even younger by admitting to being hooked on electronic games and using social media platforms like Snapchat.
Politically, they are painting themselves as young, fresh alternatives to lead the country in a new direction, away from candidates named Bush and Clinton, who are seen as early front-runners.
"Now the time has come for our generation to lead the way toward a new American century," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., 43, said last month as he announced his presidential run in Miami, adding: "This election is a generational choice about what kind of country we will be."
Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, 44, are the first major presidential aspirants to be born in the 1970s. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, who is exploring a run, is a couple of weeks younger than Rubio.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, is 47. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is 52, the far edge of what is considered Generation X, which is generally considered to encompass people born between 1964 and 1980.
For some of these men, their youth affords them a currency not readily available to older candidates, including Jeb Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (who once asked a group of young people if they remembered 1979): the ability to speak fluently about the popular culture of recent decades.
"We live in an HBO, ESPN, TMZ society," said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell. "Most people do not follow politics that closely. Sometimes, talking about something other than politics can be smarter than talking about politics."
And in a Republican Party enamored with all things Reagan, the younger candidates are able to talk about how the 40th president helped mold them politically — a unique perspective not available to Republican nominees of recent elections.
"For folks like John McCain and Bob Dole, they showed themselves in camera shots with Reagan as a peer," said Kevin Madden, a Generation X Republican strategist who was a top adviser to Mitt Romney in 2012.
This cycle's younger candidates claim the mantle of Reagan "not because they had worked with [him], but because he was the one who sort of defined the big issues of their generation," Madden said.
Spokespeople for Cruz, Rubio, Walker and Paul declined to comment for this article. But the candidates' ages have shown through on the campaign trail.
Cruz once aspired to be an actor, and he peppers his stump speeches with references to quotes from movies including "The Usual Suspects."
"You had me at hello," a line from the movie "Jerry Maguire" he repeats to people who ask a question he is excited to answer. His favorite movie? "The Princess Bride."
The Texas Republican also does impressions, including Scotty from "Star Trek" and Darth Vader. Last month, Cruz was asked to choose his favorite episode of "The Simpsons."
"You know, that's a tough call," he said on the Federalist Radio Hour. He then immediately launched into explaining two episodes of the show, including one in which Lisa's favorite musician dies and appears in cloud form along with characters from "The Lion King." Naturally, he cited an episode involving a politician — though he botched a quote. About freedom.
"Forwards not backwards, upwards not downwards and twirling, twirling into the future," Cruz said. The character actually declared he was "twirling towards freedom."
Rubio has a talent for "spitting" rap lyrics and has declared himself the "only member of the hip-hop caucus in the Senate." NBC News asked Rubio to demonstrate his hip-hop style; he declined.
"The ones that I know are from the '90s, they're not — they would all be censored anyway," Rubio said.
Rubio also has taken sides in the famous East Coast-West Coast battle for early '90s rap supremacy between Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G. Rubio noted that Tupac rose to fame when the politician was in college and law school.
"I think Tupac's lyrics were probably more insightful, in my opinion," Rubio told BuzzFeed in 2013. "With all apologies to the Biggie fans."
In an interview with GQ, Rubio said his three favorite rap songs are NWA's "Straight Outta Compton," "Killuminati" by Tupac and "Lose Yourself" by Eminem, which features lyrics including: "If you had one shot . . . to seize everything you ever wanted . . . would you capture it?"
Walker only occasionally cites pop culture, with mixed results. On Hugh Hewitt's radio show in March, he compared the Iran-Israel conflict to a movie.
"I remember the movie in the '80s, "Trading Places," Walker said. "You know, with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, it's like Iran and Israel are trading places in the sequel."
The '80s and '90s nostalgia can take a serious turn, too. Cruz and Rubio, for example, have shared pivotal memories of Reagan from their elementary school days.
"For me, I was 10 when Reagan became president. I was 18 when he left the White House," Cruz said in 2013. "The World War II generation would often talk about FDR as quote, 'our president,' I'll go to my grave with Ronald Wilson Reagan defining what it means to be president."
Rubio writes in his memoir, "An American Son," that Reagan's election and his grandfather's "allegiance to him were defining influences on me politically."
In fifth grade, recalls Rubio, he wrote a paper "praising President Reagan for restoring the U.S. military after it had been demoralized and allowed to decay in the years before his presidency."
The relative youth of Cruz, Rubio and Paul is amplified when they speak to people even younger than they are, a demographic Republicans have struggled to appeal to in recent elections.
Cruz explains his opposition to Obamacare by telling young people to Google a Jimmy Kimmel clip. He admits to being addicted to his iPhone, especially Twitter and the game Candy Crush. An artist transformed Cruz into a ripped, tattooed smoker, and he put it on Facebook. On the campaign trail, Cruz mentions that a group of Republicans were murdered at a Ted Cruz fundraiser on the HBO show "True Blood."
"For anyone over 40 in the room, 'True Blood' is a show on HBO about vampires," Cruz said in March in New Hampshire.
Rubio has said he's friends with the rapper Pitbull — Armando, to him — and is a Nicki Minaj fan. Paul, the Kentucky Republican, has been furiously working to attract young people to his tech-savvy campaign, opening offices in Austin and San Francisco. He's also a frequent user of Snapchat, sharing a clip of himself getting poker lessons from the "King of Instagram." And he's notorious for trolling everyone from Clinton to President Barack Obama on Twitter.
But youth can be a liability in Republican circles, too, strategists say, because of lingering hostility toward Obama.
"You do have voters who will also hesitate because of the most recent example of a candidate who was ushered into office at a young age," said Madden.
And sometimes those who create the art the candidates cite don't like it. Al Jean, a showrunner for "The Simpsons," paraphrased Cruz's favorite episode in a way the candidate would not enjoy:
"Ted Cruz? Go ahead, throw your vote away," Jean told the Daily Beast.
Other celebrities, including Snoop Dogg and Beyoncé have said they'll back Clinton.
It's not just the candidates from Generation X who stand out — it's their spouses, too.
Cruz often talks about his wife Heidi's wildly successful career as a managing director for Goldman Sachs in Houston. She has taken a leave from her job and is playing, as Cruz said in March, an "integral part" in the campaign. The couple often take their two young daughters, Caroline and Catherine, to campaign events.
And for Rubio, perhaps the most pivotal moment of his relationship with his now-wife, Jeanette, may be the most Generation X story of them all. It's a tale of a '90s foam party and a pay-phone call.
In his book, Rubio recalls wading out of some foam at a South Beach club in 1995 contemplating his future with Jeanette. Their relationship was strained, and their future was in doubt. Rubio, who had taken to a life of clubbing during their temporary split, looked at his shoes, which were black when he walked in.
"Maybe because I took it as a sign the life I was leading was phony and unsustainable or just that I had suddenly found myself wearing white shoes, a South Beach fashion faux pas," he writes.
"I left the club and found the nearest pay phone. I called Jeanette," he continues. She told him to go home or never see her again. "I hailed a cab and went home. It was the best decision I ever made."
