ELECTION WATCH : Mature Judgments

A man we know, a noted lawyer and jurist now in his 70s, poignantly gave voice one day last week to his growing frustration over the state of his nation. “I hate to admit this,” he told us, “but I hope that my two sons don’t make me a grandfather.”

This nation’s social problems, in his view, have grown ever more severe as solutions have grown incremental and more expensive. Because the policy gridlock in Washington has worsened and American society seems to him so much more degraded than in decades past, he despairs for the future of a new generation.

Sadly, he is not alone in his pessimism. Historically, younger Americans have led periods of social and political disaffection while their elders have been more likely to be satisfied with the status quo. But a recent poll conducted by the Times Mirror Center for People and the Press indicates that, increasingly, older Americans are the ones fed up with the system and ready for new leadership.

Two-thirds of those in the survey over the age of 50 said that new leaders are needed now in Washington, even if they are not as effective as experienced politicians. Fewer than half the people younger than 30 took that position. The poll found that older people were also more likely to believe that government services were “usually inefficient and wasteful,” that business profits are excessive and that government regulation does more harm than good.

Because the older that Americans are the more likely they are to vote, these findings may be the harbinger of a most interesting election campaign in coming months.