Young Republicans Find Fault With Elders on List of Social Issues
by JONATHAN MARTIN
It was difficult to miss Ian Jacobson at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Known as Rooster, he was 33, with an ample beard, earrings and a towering orange-and-aqua spiked Mohawk haircut. But he also sported a pinstriped suit, French cuffs and a natty contrast collar.
Mr. Jacobson’s sartorial contradictions matched those of his politics: He is among the young Republicans who are pro-free market on fiscal issues and libertarian on social ones. While his views represent a potential growth wing for a party that is losing among other demographic groups, they also show an emerging tension with the older social conservatives at the core of the party’s base.
“I want us to return to our roots,” Mr. Jacobson said while attending the conference over the weekend. A self-described “libertarian-leaning Republican” from San Antonio, he sketched out his ideal political party as one that freed individuals to chart their own course in their personal and professional lives.
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Ian Jacobson, 33, known as Rooster, is among the young Republicans who is pro-free market on fiscal issues and libertarian on social ones. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times He had a ready assessment of his party’s opposition to same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana: “It’s ridiculous, it’s time-consuming and it’s taking focus away from where it should be — on economic issues.”
While much attention has been devoted to the split between the establishment and the Tea Party, the growing divide along generational lines among Republicans could cause a significant a rift. Younger conservatives are more firmly staking out a libertarian orientation on social issues in a way that will shape the 2016 presidential primary as candidates seek to appeal to activists who are in the party because of social issues and to younger voters who see some aspects of cultural conservatism as intolerant.
That young people, regardless of party, prefer a live-and-let-live approach on social issues is nothing new. In 2012, President Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 23 points among 18- to 29-year-olds in part because of the president’s more liberal cultural views. But what is increasingly alarming to some cultural conservatives is that it is not just young Democrats who share those views — and that this youthful libertarianism is not fading when the Republicans of tomorrow graduate from college.
Zach Pohl, an Ohio State junior who was strolling through CPAC wearing a Russian-style winter hat with “OBAMA” and the Soviet hammer and sickle emblazoned on it, said he was not really moved by the same-sex marriage issue.
“Religiously, I don’t agree with it, but at the same time I don’t really care,” Mr. Pohl said.
Well, what did you expect to read in the New York Times?
Why do you think the reporter sought out the orange-red Mohawk beast to be the ‘heart’ of his reporting?
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