The article reports,
Forty-eight percent of Americans 18 to 29 years old said the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, while 45 percent said the United States should have stayed out. That is in sharp contrast to the opinions of those 65 and older, who have lived through many other wars. Twenty eight percent of that age group said the United States did the right thing, while 67 percent said the United States should have stayed out.
This is not inconsistent with the polling we did at OpEdNews.com. But it is, in a way, misleading.
Our polling looked at a number of different age ranges. When 18-29 was grouped together, you got a result like the NY Times. But when different ranges were used, 18-25 and 25-35, the results were very very different. The youngest group, 18-25 polled must more to the left, against Bush, against the war. The 25 to 35 group was much more conservative.
This makes sense to me. The youngest group is most at risk to be drafted, if a draft is put into effect and they tend to be unmarried (only 9% married.) The older group has begun raising families, having children, and married (36% married,) with children respondents poll much more conservatively.
Our polling, using dem by dem analysis of the demographic questions, found that among 18-24 year olds, only 7% identified themselves as conservative, and none as very conservative, compared to 25-34 year olds, where 25% consider themselves conservative and 3% very conservative.
The 18-29 age group found that 23% identified themselves as conservatives and 2% as very conservative.
Now, our poll was done almost a year ago, in PA, by Zogby, online, so there are plenty of ways it could be criticized. It would be interesting to see what other polls find. It's hard to get the demographics by demographics crosstabs though for publicly released polls.
I've posted this with the hopes that there will be some discussion about the Times poll, the results they reported and ideas on approaches that could be taken to move these last bastions of Bush support-- married parents between 25 and 65.
cross-posted at MYDD.com
