A demographic breakdown of support for the war
TERENCE SMITH: Rich Morin, you broke down the support and lack of support in different categories, by gender and by race and age. Tell me what you found.
RICHARD MORIN: We found some big difference in each one of those dimensions. There is a huge gender gap on the war. About two-thirds of all men support it, but only about half of all women currently back the war. It's interesting when you look at partisanship, too. The breakdowns reflect the differences of Republican men and Republican women who are slightly less likely to support the war. The converse is true for Democrats. When you look at the race, there are huge differences. About six in ten whites support the war. Almost half, about 35 percent, of all minorities support it -- a big, big difference. And black support is even lower.
TERENCE SMITH: Age?
RICHARD MORIN: Age was fascinating to us because when we looked at the results, we found the group that was the most -- least likely to support this war were older Americans. When we looked at younger people, we saw higher levels of support. So the faces of the demonstrators may be young, but the faces of the oppose -- those who really oppose the war are old.
TERENCE SMITH: Those who perhaps have experienced war?
RICHARD MORIN: That's the -- that is exactly right, people who know that war is uncertain and have lived with the consequences of past war. They can remember that. Young people hear the rhetoric. They see strong words and strong actions and tend to support it. Their lessons are yet to be learned.
TERENCE SMITH: Andy, what's your reaction to those divisions within the populous?
ANDREW KOHUT: Very characteristic of war, this age pattern. But there's another thing, and that is religion. We found not much difference among Catholics. The pontific representative was here this week. Catholic support is about as high as Protestant support. White evangelicals who are heavily Republican are backing more. The real gap is with seculars. People who don't go to church are far less likely to oppose the war than people who are religious.
RICHARD MORIN: There's one important caveat, and that is when you compare the levels of support and the differences in support, this war, the war of Afghanistan, very, very different. Support for that war was across the boards and strong. Not so now.