New poll

There's a new NYT/CBS/MTV poll showing that young Americans, between the ages of 17 and 29, are a good deal more liberal than older people. The overall conclusion is kind of obvious but the individual results are enlightening stuff.

Fifty-four percent of respondents in the group say they would vote for a Democrat in the 2008 presidential election. They generally have a negative a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with the group; after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush's approval rating among young people was at 80 percent.

At a time when Democrats have made gains after years in which Republicans have dominated Washington, young Americans appear to lean slightly more to the left than the general population: 28 percent described themselves as liberal, compared with 20 percent of the nation at large. And 27 percent called themselves conservative, compared with 32 percent of the general public.

The same goes for social issues.

Forty-four percent said they believed that same-sex couples should be permitted to get married, compared with 28 percent of the public at large. They are more likely than their elders to support the legalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana.

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In the current poll, 62 percent said they would support a universal, government-sponsored national health care insurance program; 47 percent of the general public holds that view. And 30 percent said that “Americans should always welcome new immigrants,” while 24 percent of the general public holds that view.

On abortion, 38 percent said it should be legal but with greater restrictions, 37 percent said it should be available on demand, and 24 percent oppose it altogether. These numbers are not very different from the general public's take on adoption.

But the real interesting stuff is their views on politics.

In one potential sign of shifting attitudes, respondents, by overwhelming margins, said they believed that the nation was prepared to elect as president a woman, a black person or someone who admitted to having used marijuana. But they said that they did not believe Americans would elect someone who had used cocaine or someone who was a Mormon.

Mr. Obama has suggested that he used cocaine as a young man. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a candidate for the Republican nomination, is a Mormon.

By a 52 to 36 majority, young Americans say that Democrats, rather than Republicans, come closer to sharing their moral values, while 58 percent said they had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and 38 percent said they had a favorable view of Republicans.

Asked if they were enthusiastic about any of the candidates running for president, 18 percent named Mr. Obama, of Illinois, and 17 percent named Mrs. Clinton, of New York. Those two were followed by Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, who was named by just 4 percent of the respondents.

That doesn't bode well for the Republicans, and you can expect to see the Democrats getting together a huge get-out-the-vote movement among young people in 2008. The question is, what will the Republicans do to keep the demographic from voting?