A famous aphorist with a fondness for drink (and also something of a statesmen, apparently), Winston Churchill* once said, "show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart; show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." Winnie's underlying assumption, of course, is that younger people tend to be lefties, and older people tend to be otherwise--a common enough observation. But it turns out the politics of age are considerably more complicated than Churchill suggested--and right now, they're conspiring against the Republican Party.

It's no secret that the GOP brand is on the decline. At 51 percent to 38 percent, the gap between Democratic and Republican party identification among voters is a full 10 points wider than it was in 2004 (47-44)--wider, in fact, than at any point since the peak of the Reagan Revolution, when Republicans enjoyed a double-digit advantage. And according to a new research report from the Pew Center for the People and the Press, it's young voters who are mostly responsible for Democrats' recent gains. In the under-30 cohort, Democrats trounce Republicans among women (63-28), men (52-38), Southerners (53-38), Midwesterners (61-32), moderates (62-28) and suburbanites (56-34)--often boasting much larger margins than what they're able to scrounge up among older voters in the same demographic. Overall, 58 percent of voters aged 18-29 (i.e., Millennials) call themselves Democrats, while only 33 percent call themselves Republicans. That gap--25 percent--has doubled since 2004. As the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder puts it, this is "the GOP['s] generational time bomb."

Subscribers to the canard of "young liberals and old conservatives" are probably unsurprised. But according to Pew, they should be. That's because history proves them wrong. (See chart above.) When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, for example, a plurality of voters under 30--47 percent--identified as Republicans. The reason: when they came of age. As the Pew people write: "Age differences in party affiliation are a result of a variety of influences, including... generational differences that reflect the political climate at the time when individuals were forming their political identity and loyalties." That's why the youngest voters in 1992, Generation Xers, were actually more Republican than their elders: "they had come of age politically during a time in which conservative ideas were ascendant and the presidency was held by a popular Republican, Ronald Reagan." Same goes for the second-youngest group--i.e., Generation Jonesers (like Barack Obama) then in their late 20s and early 30--who followed the troubled presidency of Jimmy Carter on TV as tots; they were also more Republican than average. Meanwhile, older Baby Boomers, who'd endured the turbulent Nixon years, were solidly Democratic. The point? When it comes to the Millennials, it's not their age alone that's making them Democrats--it's President George W. Bush.

The good news for the GOP?  Party loyalty isn't forever. Take Generations X and Jones, for example. Born between 1956 and 1976, they leaned Republican throughout the 1990s, and the party still clung to a slight edge among them--47 to 44--as recently as 2004. But the latest Pew polling shows a striking change of heart: currently, 51 percent of voters aged 32 to 52 affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with 39 percent who describe themselves as Republicans or lean toward the GOP. Of course, that's bad news for Republicans in the short run. But it just goes to show: if the party manages, against all odds, to put a president in the White House this November, and he manages, against all odds, to overcome a likely Democratic Congress and make a positive lasting impression--well, then maybe some of these "defectors" will come running back to the right, and Republicans can begin to repair the damage that Bush has done.

Your move, Sen. McCain.

*A reader notes that there's some disagreement over whether Churchill actually said this. Damn Internets!
 

Gerald Herbert / AP

And yet we have no idea what they said.

Leaving the White House, Gore--whom Bush honored with a closed-door tete-a-tete in addition to the typical Nobel Prize prize photo-op--told a swarm of reporters that "of course, we talked about global warming" before adding that it was a "private meeting." "I’m not going to say anything about it other than that it was very nice, very cordial," he said. "He was very gracious in setting up the meeting, and it was a very good and very substantive conversation. That’s all.” Bush has been equally mum.

So we turn to you, dear readers. Take a close look at the photo above. Imagine what Gore is saying to Bush. Then leave your best caption in the comments below. It's as simple as that. At the end of the week, I'll consult with a team of NEWSWEEK reporters and editors and pick the smartest, funniest submission. Prize TBD. But count on a special Stumper post--at the very least.

Personally, I think Gore is asking Bush if those are EnergyStar-qualified compact fluorescent light bulbs...

You?

Jenna, light of my life, fire of my... Oh, wait. Sorry. Didn't see you there. Crying? Who? Me? What makes you think that? Oh, right--the salted tears streaming down my face and falling to the floor beneath my desk, where I lie in the fetal position, silent and still. Those. I guess you've got a point there. For the First Family, this has been a joyous day: 25-year-old daughter Jenna Welch Bush--the blonde one--is now engaged to Henry Hager, 29, son of the Honorable and Mrs. John H. Hager of Richmond, Virginia. But for us members of the American media, today has been as dark as each shot of Jagermeister that Jenna "Hager" will never do. "Devoted wife and mother" doesn't have quite the same ring, sadly, as "brash, boozy, barely legal twin." Nothing gold can stay.

When Jenna arrived at the White House in 2000, after eight earnest, awkward years of Chelsea Clinton, Washington welcomed her with open arms. And that was before the fun began. Within a month, the then 19-year-old UT-Austin student coerced a Secret Service agent into springing a buddy from a Texas slammer after he was arrested for public drunkenness. Then she landed on the cover of the National Enquirer, smoking a cigarette and falling to the floor atop a giggling gal-pal. Then she was cited, in Austin, for underage drinking. Then she tried to sweet-talk a bartender into serving her liquor and, when he refused, fled from her security detail down a back alley, yelling that her father would "have your ass." Then she was arrested after slipping another bartender a fake ID. Then she partied with Diddy. And Chris Cornell of Audioslave. And Ashton Kutcher, who claimed that he witnessed a friend "smoking [pot with] the Bush twins on his hookah." We all knew where such behavior would lead: a pantyless paparazzi picture, a shaved head, a sex tape, a stint in rehab, a Chihuahua. And we rejoiced.

Until today, when our world came crashing down. In truth, the warning signs first appeared long ago. After graduating from college, Jenna took a job in Washington as a public-school teacher. She's since interned with UNICEF in Panama and sold two books--one about her experiences in Latin America, the other a children's book co-authored with her mother--to Harper Collins. And false reports of an engagement to Hager have surfaced several times since the pair started dating in 2005. Yawn.

Then again, all may not be lost. Although Hager seems likes a respectable young Republican -- the son of a former tobacco executive and Assistant Secretary of Education who now runs the Virginia GOP, he graduated from Wake Forest before interning for Karl Rove and working at commerce -- you know what they always say: "Women marry their fathers." Which means we've still got a good 25 years of non-stop partying before Hager is elected leader of the free world. If not, there's always the bachelorette party.