The Greying GOP

While CPAC has a mix of young students and professionals, the Defending the American Dream summit in Washington is a sea of grey hair and bald domes.

As I was walking around to check out some of the panels at the “Defending the American Dream” summit, a nice little old lady, in either her late 50s or 60s, came over to ask me a question:

“Excuse me, but can you tell me what time it is? My cell phone is on central time and I don’t know how to reset it.”

I bent over to check, and explained to her that cell phones automatically reset their clocks based on the time zones they enter in.

“Oh thank you, I didn’t realize that!”

I usually feel a little out of place at movement conservative events due to the heterodox nature of the blog I write for, but in this case, I feel out of place because every time I enter a breakout room, I see a sea of grey hair and bald domes. While CPAC had a strong mix of young college students and mid-life professionals, the Defending the American Dream summit skews very noticeably to the age where Social Security checks are on the horizon and walking sticks are needed to get around the hotel.

It is possible that this might just be due to timing. After all it is a Friday in the middle of August and school is starting. But is it possible that this is a sign that a much older electorate is becoming the face of the GOP’s?

As a Pew survey identified earlier this year, it seems to be the case. As Daniel Larson wrote:

If you dig into the full report, you will see that the recent Republican resurgence owes almost everything to the dramatic shift among members of the so-called “Silent Generation,” whose voting preferences on the generic ballot have gone from being 49-41 Democrat in 2006 to 48-39 Republican for 2010. There have been small shifts in other age groups toward the Republicans, but by far it is the alienation of voters aged 65-82 that has been most damaging to the Democrats’ political strength. … In other words, the main reason why the GOP is enjoying any sort of political recovery is that many elderly voters have changed their partisan preferences since the last midterm. Republicans remain behind among all voters younger than 65.

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