Voter generation gap pits old against young

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - America's oldest citizens, who traditionally wield outsized electoral clout because they vote in the greatest numbers, are backing John McCain by nearly the same margin that the youngest voters favor Barack Obama.

Pollsters call it the biggest generation gap in decades and it's all the more striking because voters in every age group agree overwhelmingly the economy is the top issue in the November 4 election to choose President George W. Bush's successor.

"It's certainly not anything like ever happened before," said pollster John Zogby.

Most polls put Obama a few points ahead of McCain overall. But Zogby's early October polling showed Republican nominee McCain with a 21-point lead over Democratic nominee Obama among likely voters 65 and older. Among likely voters aged 18 to 29, Obama held a 21-point lead.

Older voters have been leaning more Republican since 2000, and demographics are partly at play. Voters who grew up with President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" economic recovery and social reform programs in the 1930s are dying off.

"Older people now include the Cold War, Korean War, '50s generation," Zogby said. "They're more conservative than the New Deal generation."

Race counts against Obama for some older voters, he said.

"They are the least ready, they say, for an African American president so that kind of shaves a few more points off the Democratic column," Zogby said. Obama is the first black presidential candidate of a major U.S. party.

But even among older whites, "Attitudes toward race are not as important as the generational differences," said pollster Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

McCain, 72, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war who has served in Congress since 1982, would be the oldest president ever to start a first term. Obama, 47, a first-term U.S. senator who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, would be one of the youngest.

"While Obama leads in the economy in most tests of who you have more confidence in, older voters are more wary of his lack of experience than are younger voters. They also have a better opinion of John McCain," said Kohut.

Arenas, a 72-year-old Republican who declined to give her full name while shopping on Miami Beach, thinks McCain's military background makes him better able to protect America.

"McCain is stronger than Obama," she said.

Dick Sturm, 75, a retired accountant who drives a guest shuttle at Walt Disney World, said he has concerns about Obama's relative inexperience in Washington.

"John McCain is not promising the world. Obama is promising a lot of stuff he cannot deliver and frankly I just don't trust him," said Sturm, who has a McCain campaign sign in his yard.