In a Changing Corner of Pennsylvania, a Glimpse of Obama's Age Problem

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In a Changing Corner of Pennsylvania, a Glimpse of Obama's Age Problem

WP: In a Changing Corner of Pa., a Glimpse of Obama's Age Problem
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page A04
LANCASTER, Pa.

....If the senator from Illinois is going to achieve his goal of bridging the nation's divides, he is going to have to overcome a generation gap with older voters unlike any such split a Democratic presidential nominee has faced in years. Even as younger voters are showing signs of breaking with years of lackluster turnout to support him, Obama is facing singular resistance from voters over 65. That age group turns out at the highest rate on Election Day and is disproportionately represented in the swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania; Bill Clinton and Al Gore both relied on it in winning the Democrats' only popular-vote majorities of the past two decades.

With polls showing Obama dominating among those under 40 and running even among middle-aged voters, Republican John McCain's lead among those 65 and older is the main reason he remains close overall. His margin is largest among older white voters without a college education, accounting for much of Obama's problem with the white working class. Obama has tried to compensate by proposing a tax cut for seniors, which was criticized by economists. But as (Gene) Rutherford's comments suggest and surveys show, Obama's challenge goes deeper than a new proposal or two -- an approach that worked for Clinton against George H.W. Bush and Robert J. Dole.

Surveys and interviews suggest that older voters think McCain, who will turn 72 this month, comes far closer than Obama, 47, to sharing their values and outlook on the world and on the changes in the nation over the past half-century....

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Demographers have for decades noted a conservative bent in McCain's age cohort, roughly those born between 1930 and 1945, who came of age in the relatively serene Eisenhower years. Even as their views have changed over time, members of this generation have remained notably more conservative than those who followed....

McCain hails from an America that exalted service to country, and he is the scion of a military family who endured five years in enemy captivity and who preaches a mantra of personal honor and of the nation over the individual -- "Country First," as his campaign slogan declares. His wife is conspicuously reserved at his side; he does not communicate by e-mail and only recently learned to use the Internet; even his roguish sense of humor carries echoes of the more chauvinistic 1950s of his youth.

Obama's embodiment of a newer America begins but hardly ends with the fact that he would be the first black president. In a country where people liked to know where you were from, Obama lacks a ready answer -- he is part Hawaii, part Kansas, part Chicago. In a recent speech in Berlin, he declared himself a "citizen of the world." He came of age after the draft and was shaped by the modern meritocracies of premier universities. While McCain has served 26 years in Congress and has run for president before, Obama contends with the perception that he has shot to the top without putting in his time. He and his wife exemplify the contemporary marriage of professional equals. His campaign thrives on the Internet and is very much about his appeal as an individual, with iconic posters and YouTube compilations. If he shares anything with the America of yore, it is that he likes to smoke cigarettes....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102203_pf.html