Youth Is Fleeting for Bush
By Richard Morin, Claudia Deane and Christopher Muste Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, August 12, 2004; 8:00 AM
Youth is Fleeting for Bush
Of course it would never happen like this, but it should: President Bush and political guru Karl Rove are enjoying a quiet evening together in the private quarters of the White House. Suddenly, Rove looks up in horror from his computer printouts and asks:
"George . . . where are the kids?"
Where, indeed. And we're not talking about Jenna Bush or her sister Barbara, but millions of other younger voters who supported Bush in 2000 but currently plan to vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry.
Surveys suggest that Bush's popularity has plummeted among 18- to 29-year-olds in the past four months, posing a new obstacle to the president's bid to win reelection and an immediate challenge to Republicans seeking to win over impressionable and lightly committed young people during their upcoming convention.
Four years ago, network exit polls found that Bush and Democrat Al Gore split the vote of 18- to 29-year-olds, with Gore claiming 48 percent and Bush getting 46 percent -- the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate in more than a decade.
But that was then. In the latest Post-ABC News poll taken immediately after the Democratic convention, Kerry led Bush 2-1 among registered voters younger than 30. Among older voters, the race was virtually tied.
Bush's problems with younger voters began months before the Democratic convention, Post-ABC polls suggest. The last time Bush and Kerry were tied among the under-30 crowd was back in April. In the five surveys conducted since then, Bush has trailed Kerry by an average of 18 percentage points.
Virtually every other major poll conducted in the past month confirms Kerry's newfound and perhaps transient popularity with voters under the age of 30. The size of this advantage varies, due in part to the relatively small number of younger voters and correspondingly large margin of sampling error in each survey.
A Newsweek Poll conducted on July 29-30 found Kerry with a 51-32 lead among 18- to 29-year-olds. The CBS News/New York Times post-convention survey of registered voters showed Kerry with a 50-31 advantage among this group.
Kerry also led among young adults in most surveys conducted during the weeks leading up to the convention. The combined data from surveys of 2,891 registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in May and June showed a 15-point Kerry lead, but its mid-July survey found the race tied. A Newsweek poll exclusively of younger voters interviewed in mid-July found Kerry with a 48-41 lead while a Post-ABC News survey put the Democrat ahead by 9 points on the eve of his party's convention.
Taken together, the post-convention surveys suggest that if the election were held today, Bush would do about as badly among younger voters as Republican Robert Dole did in 1996 when he lost to incumbent Bill Clinton by 53 percent to 34 percent in this age group. Dubya's dad was more popular with younger voters in both 1988 and 1992: The elder Bush split the young vote in 1988 and lost to Clinton by 9 percentage points in 1992. Of course the Reagan era marked the recent high-water mark for Republicans with younger voters, who gave the Gipper his biggest victory margin of any age group in 1984.
Tyler McLaughlin, 27, of Georgetown, Tex., didn't vote four years ago. He supported Bush during the first years of his presidency. "But after two years of war, I became anti-Bush," said McLaughlin, a project scheduler for a computer firm. "This seemed like a guy . . . who made a decision and won't go back on it."
The latest Post-ABC News survey found that Kerry consistently topped Bush by double-digit margins as the candidate young adults trusted to deal with every major issue, including the economy, Iraq, education and health care. The Democrat also was viewed by substantial margins as best able to handle the campaign against terrorism and taxes, issues in which Bush still had an advantage among all voters.
The issues motivating younger voters are not much different than those on the minds of all Americans. The war in Iraq and the economy lead their list of top voting concerns in recent Post-ABC News surveys -- not surprising because it's young people who are fighting in Iraq and hustling to keep or find jobs in this uncertain economy. Education ranks somewhat higher as a voting issue for young voters, not unexpected either, since many of them are still in college or just out of school.
One surprise: the campaign against terrorism is less of a voting issue for younger voters than for the rest of the country. In the most recent Post-ABC poll, only 9 percent of all 18- to 29-year-olds rated it as their top voting concern compared to 20 percent of all voters.
"The war -- definitely," said Becky Hibma, 24, homemaker, in Dorr, Mich., when asked what her top voting issue is this year.
Hibma says she is concerned about terrorism. She was on her honeymoon at Disney World when the Twin Towers fell. But for her, Iraq is the more immediate and tangible problem. "It could have been handled very differently. We jumped in too quickly .. . . A little more thinking would have been great."
Like many of her friends, she says she's torn between the two candidates. She's "more Bush" at the moment, largely because of the president's leadership after Sept. 11. "But there are days when I totally agree with everything Kerry says."
[...]
[Expletive Deleted] Potty Mouths
As cathartic as it may be, Americans might not want to follow Vice President Cheney's profane example when engaging in a frank exchange of views with others. While most Americans aren't particularly offended by potty-mouthing, as recently as 1996 one in five were ready to call in the law on blasphemers.
Q I am going to read a list of things that some people consider to be morally wrong. For each item, please select the number that best indicates how wrong you, personally, think it is when people engage in that behavior: Swearing or using offensive language
22% Wrong for all and should not be legally tolerated
33 Wrong for all but should be tolerated
22 Right for some, but not for me personally
6 Right for me, but not necessarily for others
4 Right for all
14 Not a moral issue
Source: Survey by the University of Virginia's Post-Modernity Project conducted Jan. 27-April 14, 1996 and based on personal interviews with a national adult sample of 2,047. Data provided by The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut.
In the wholesome early 1950s, Gallup asked married respondents:
Do you object to your husband or wife saying "damn" or "hell" when among a group of adults?
44% Yes
50 No
7 Qualified answer/No opinion
Source: Conducted by the Gallup Organization, Nov. 11-16, 1951, and based on personal interviews with a national adult sample of 2,019. Data provided by The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut. © 2004 The Washington Post Company