The poll I saw done by Washington Post and ABC shows that 41% of people believe that gay marraige should be legal, and 55% feelt hat it should not be legal. But there is an encouraging sign in this poll.
This poll shows that 18-29 year olds favor gay marraige legalization, and 42% oppose. But for those 65 and older, only 21% favor gay marraige and 75% oppose.
What this all means: the next generation is a generation whose majority is not a bunch of family values idiots. In 50 years, when the family values idiots die out, say hello to gay marraige.
Have you ever heard the phrase "Ignorant youth"? The youth are always radical. They grow out of it though.
Exactly. The liberal counter-culture of the 60s and 70s became the biggest share of the Romney 2012 electorate.
Incorrect.
The liberal counter-culture of the 1960s was a very loud minority made popular by its radical and newsworthy nature. For every hippie dancing in the Bay Area, there was a kid in Mississippi protesting busing and school integration. For every veteran who tossed his medals in protest, there's a Vietnam vet angry we didn't keep going until we won the war. Oh, and then there's this:
Age 18-24 Exit Polls (became 18-29 in 1988)
1976: Ford 51%, Carter 49%
1980: Carter 45%, Reagan 44%, Anderson 11%
1984: Reagan 61%, Mondale 38%
1988: Bush 53%, Dukakis 47%
As you can see, only in 1980 did the Democrat do better with youth than with olds, and much of that was because 18-24 voted most for the John Anderson option, another Republican, instead of Reagan.
If you really want to see the trend, you'll see that the 1976 18-24 demo barely changed at all over the course of their lives:
1976: Ford +2 (18-24 group)
1980: Reagan +2 (24-29 group)
1984: Reagan +21 (30-39 group)
1988: Bush +8 (30-39 group)
1992: Clinton +2 (30-39 group)
1996: Clinton +7 (40-49 group)
2000: Bush +2 (40-49 group)
2004: Bush +7 (40-49 group)
2008: Obama +1 (50-64 group)
2012: Romney +2 (50-64 group)
As you can see, the youths of 1976 have been consistently 2 points more Republican than the population as a whole in every election except 1980, most of that caused by John Anderson, a Republican, receiving double digit support among this group. Reagan likely would have won young people by 12 points in 1980 without that third party candidacy. Jimmy Carter was elected by older Americans of the day not young ones.
The idea that people become conservative as they grow older is a huge myth. Every conservative in Congress today was a conservative when they were in college, you can just ask them.
The olds of the past were the New Deal Democrats, the youths of the past distrusted government post-Watergate and Vietnam. Today, the youth demand a better federal government. The olds still distrust government.
What's curious is whatever is going on with 18-24 demographic in the past 3 elections:
2000: Tied
2004: Kerry+9
2008: Obama+34
2012: Obama+24
30-39 was Obama +13 in 2012, so the lean D characteristic of the Kerry cohort seems to hold.
The major shift seems to be from 2000 to 2004 with the youth vote and it has been holding well left of center for a while. But 18-24 and 25-29 were the same in 2012, so there was a snap back among 2008 first-time voters in addition to the very youngest cohort being slightly less liberal.
The 65+ demographic was Gore +4 in 2000, which probably marks the last gasp of the New Deal coalition...
