if a poll tells you seniors don't like something, but for the most part everyone else is okay with it, what do you do with that information? Lies and distortions aren't forever. If an actual bill appears, courtesy of the US Congress, and there are no unpopular-with-seniors features which were rumored to be in the bill, what then? Who wins, who loses?

In a fascinating dissection of theABC/WaPo poll, we learn what we knew, in ways tough to ignore. Seniors must think the kids are after their Medicare, which, of course, is a beloved government-administered health insurance program. Among the seven questions asked, all reflecting similar generational splits:

Same is okay; you haven't lost until "worse >50". But the numbers mirror the generational split we see in the weekly Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll, where Obama's favorability (55-40) looks like this:

We have the 30-44 year olds (Michael J Fox as Alex P. Keaton) who don't know what to make of Obama, and the seniors (at 43-54 fav-unfav) in stark contrast with the 18-29s (at 78-18) and 45-59 year olds (who have more in common with Millenials than inter-generational sniping would have you believe.)

Looking over the past seven weeks (from July 17 though the latest poll ending Aug 27), the hits have been over the last two weeks (at least one of which has been while Obama is on vacation):

Is it forever? An actual bill would go a long way to answer that question. Getting seniors back to "neutral" would be an immediate goal. In the meantime, because nothing happens in a vacuum, you can expect that seniors will continue to get played.