AGE AND POLITICS

Some time ago I read a conservative political activist wonder why more people 65 years and over weren't conservative.   FAUX News may be changing that, if this report from Richmond Ramsey is symptomatic:

Eight of us (so far) share something in common besides our conservatism: a deep frustration over how our parents have become impossible to take on the subject of politics. Without fail, it turns out that our folks have all been sitting at home watching Fox News Channel all day – especially Glenn Beck’s program.

Back home, I mentioned to a friend over beers how much Fox my mom and dad watched, and how angry they now were about politics.

“Yours too?!” he said. “I’ve noticed the same thing with mine. They weren’t always like this, but since they retired, they’ve gotten into Fox, and you can’t even talk to them anymore without hearing them read the riot act about Obama.”

I started to wonder how common this Fox Geezer Syndrome was. I began to poll conservative friends of my generation who had right-wing parents. At least eight different people – not an Obama voter among them, and one of them actually a George W. Bush political appointee in Washington – told me that yes, they had observed a correlation between the fevered emotionalism of their elderly parents’ politics, and increased exposure to Fox News.

I also read this report by Andrew Romano about the Safari Club annual convention. The Club had Sarah Palin as the featured speaker and here's a few snippets from his report:

Lavon Wenger, a 75-year-old Kansan who resembled a friendlier Randy Newman,

Dave Talley, 74, started hunting in the woods around his childhood home in Greenville, S.C.

Bob Dubose certainly did. A weathered 67-year-old native of Chico, Calif. who wouldn't look out of place in a John Wayne movie—cowboy hat, blue plaid shirt, a pinch of Skoal in his lower lip—Dubose may have spoken for the bulk of convention-goers when he offered up his take on Tucson. "Am I worried?" he asked, spitting a mouthful of tobacco juice into a clear plastic cup. "Sure. But only because the communistic media is making more of this damn thing than it's worth."

Perhaps Romano didn't cherry pick just the oldsters?