During the 2004 presidential campaign, extensive media coverage was focused on "all the usual suspects," like women, minority voters and evangelical Christians. But in their typical emphasis of demographic variables like gender, geography, socio-economics and race, the media largely ignored, again, the key issue of age in the electorate. In doing so, they missed out on a major story: history will show that it was one generation of voters -- Generation Jones -- that was the decisive vote that re-elected George W. Bush last month.

		Jonathan Pontell (www.jonathanpontell.com) is a marketing consultant and popular culture expert, based in Los Angeles. J. Brad Coker is managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research., based in Jacksonville, Fla.

Not that age is ignored completely in politics; every election cycle sees coverage of the well-known fact that the youngest voters vote least, the oldest most; accompanied by the inevitable speculation about whether this will finally be the year when young voters turn out. But what about the big mass of the electorate in-between these age extremes? To treat this big age chunk of voters as if it is a monolith is to miss an important part of the political equation.

Political operatives and pundits would be wise to take a cue here from the advertising community, where age is the dominant demographic variable. Ask a TV show producer who his audience is, and you'll receive an answer defined by age: "Oh, we target the 25-54's." Moreover, the advertising industry has seen, in the last couple years, a surge of interest in generational variables, going beyond the fixed static-age categories. These traditional categories only tell us the similarities between, for example, 20-somethings, but do not address the ongoing collective generational personalities that stay with people, regardless of their age.

It's odd that politics, with its huge reliance on advertising, has been so slow in learning this lesson, as the generational attitudes that so influence consumer behavior likewise influence voting behavior. Maybe the 2004 election will be the one that finally teaches us this lesson, given how large a role Generation Jones played in re-electing President Bush.

Who is Generation Jones?

For the uninitiated, Generation Jones is the large, heretofore lost, generation between the baby boomers and Generation X. Born in the years 1954 to 1965, Jonesers are not a small cusp generation that slipped through the cracks, but rather the largest generation in American history, constituting 26 percent of all U.S. adults today. Mistakenly, they were originally lumped in with boomers for one reason only: their parents and boomers' parents happened to have a lot of kids.

But generational personalities come from shared formative experiences, not head counts. This original flawed definition of the baby-boom generation has become widely discredited among generations experts, which is partly what's given rise to the emergence of Generation Jones, a cohort with significantly different attitudes and values than those held by its surrounding generations.

Why the name Generation Jones? Among its many connotations is that of a large anonymous generation, like a Generation Smith or Doe. But the connotation that perhaps is most relevant for politics arises from the slang term "jones": a craving for someone or something. As children in the 1960s, Jonesers were given huge expectations, during, arguably, the peak of post-World War II American confidence and affluence, and then confronted, as they came of age during the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s with a very different reality, leaving them with a certain pending, unrequited, "jonesin' " quality.

Those huge expectations left unfulfilled are now strongly affecting this generation as they enter middle-age, a life cycle period when all generations feel that "Now or Never" feeling rumbling in the pit of the stomach -- that realization that if you don't pursue your dreams quickly, you probably never will.

So Jonesers are stepping back from their lives, taking stock, reassessing, and experimenting. There is a mountain of statistical evidence showing that Jonesers are, right now, extremely open to trying new brands, products and services; that they are, to an unprecedented degree, switching careers, moving to new cities and changing lifestyles. In short, Jonesers are in play, they are persuadable.

This persuadability has become now well-documented in the business world, which explains a significant part of the recent buzz in those circles: many of the top global ad agencies have rushed to incorporate Jonesers into their strategic planning, numerous major ad conferences have recently included keynote speeches about Generation Jones, business trades talk up success stories about Gen Jones-targeted ad campaigns. They're becoming the "swing voters" of the American marketplace, yet the milieu of swing voting -- politics -- has been surprisingly slow to catch up to this trend.

Had the politicos been paying attention to this phenomenon, they would have seen how this generation's persuadability translated into volatility among Jonesers, particularly women, in the 2004 campaign. From the late spring through October, Joneser women were the only generation of women showing vacillation between Kerry and Bush, with the other generations of women staying relatively stable in their support for Kerry. On Election Day, Joneser women swung to Bush, while all other generations of women voted for Kerry. Their strong support of Bush points to an even bigger story: the overall massive support of Jonesers (men and women) for Bush on Election Day, which ensured the president's re-election.

Of the 15 "Battleground States" polled by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research in the week before the general election, George W. Bush carried a majority of the Generation Jones vote in all 15 -- ranging from 51 percent in Michigan to 59 percent in Ohio. Bush consistently ran 5 to 10 percentage points better among Jonesers than he did statewide in every battleground state.

In fact, if not for his significant margins among Generation Jones voters, Bush would not have been re-elected.

Bush's margins among "Jones" voters were responsible for his wins in five key battleground states, which provided him with his electoral college majority -- Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico. In these five "Red States," the majority of voters in all of the other age groups combined favored John Kerry. (See graphic above.)

In Florida, senior, baby-boomer and younger voters combined supported Kerry 50 percent to 49 percent, but Bush's 56 percent to 43 percent margin with Jonesers provided his 5-point victory statewide.

In Ohio, senior, baby-boomer and younger voters combined supported Kerry 51 percent to 48 percent, but Bush carried the state because of his 59 percent to 40 percent advantage among "Jones" voters.

In Iowa, senior, baby-boomer and younger voters combined supported Kerry 51 percent to 48 percent, but Jonesers went 56 percent to 43 percent for Bush.

In Nevada, senior, baby-boomer and younger voters combined supported Kerry 50 percent to 49 percent, but the "Jones" vote went 56 percent to 43 percent for Bush.

Finally, in New Mexico, senior, baby-boomer and younger voters combined went for Kerry 51 percent to 48 percent, but Jonesers backed Bush 54 percent to 45 percent.

In total, these five states accounted for 64 electoral votes. Had they gone for Kerry, he would have won the presidency with 316 electoral votes to Bush's 222.

Despite the decisive role they played in the 2004 presidential election, the full political impact of Generation Jones is yet to be felt, studied or understood. While the current baby boomer political leadership generation is beginning to ebb, the Jonesers are increasingly assuming positions of power in government, business and the media. They will vote in even larger numbers, likely increasing their share of the national vote above its current 28-31 percent.

Having reached adulthood primarily during the Reagan era (as opposed to the 1960s/Watergate era for most baby boomers and the World War II/Cold War era for most Seniors), Jonesers appear to offer a more conservative and less secular approach to politics than their older brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins in the baby-boom generation. They also may be less divisive and less harsh in their rhetoric, having not had to deal with the major conflicts of the Civil Rights struggle and the war in Vietnam.

Their strong support for George W. Bush may indicate a continued increase in the Republican's majority party status. As Jonesers have increased as a percentage of the vote over the past 10 years, the GOP has wrestled away control of both houses of Congress (after about a 50-year dry spell), and captured more governorships and state legislatures nationwide.

Media talking heads and campaign strategists continue to focus their post-election analysis, yet again, on younger voters, evangelical Christians, minority voters, senior citizens and women. While Jonesers make up slices of the minority vote, the evangelical vote and the women's vote, little emphasis seems to be placed on the age of the voters in these key groups. In fact, it is the female bloc of "Jones" voters that are largely identified as "security moms." They are also a major part of the "evangelical vote," and Jones voters are a significant percentage of the cross-over African-American, Asian and Hispanic voters who supported Bush.

Whether future political coverage and analysis increasingly focuses on Generation Jones remains an open question, but 2004 has already proved their standing as an important, if not the most important, voting group in the nation.