Age-old question

When Fern Horning is asked her thoughts on the current president of the United States, she sits up straight, raises her chin and lets the tirade flow.

"I think (Barack) Obama has failed in every area," the 81-year-old said on Thursday, seated beside fellow members of a philanthropic group at the Lake City Center. "I think his medical program is ridiculous. We can't afford it. I think he's failed in foreign policy."

She looks to GOP candidate Mitt Romney as the nation's saving grace.

"I got an email that said, 'I'd rather have a Mormon than a moron,'" Horning said. "I do think that's true."

Yet across town at the North Idaho College campus, just a half hour earlier, 18-year-old John Beatty didn't hesitate to pledge his vote to Obama.

"I just agree with his views," Beatty said, alluding to equal rights and getting out of the war in Afghanistan. "I'm a die-hard liberal."

The country appears generally deadlocked on Tuesday's presidential election, and two demographics show stark candidate preferences: Young voters, and older voters.

Maybe you can guess where they lean.

Obama boasts the support of 52 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 who are likely to vote, while Romney is popular among only 35 percent of that age range, according to a survey by the Center for Information and Research on Civil Learning and Engagement.

Whereas a recent CBS News/New York Times poll shows Romney holds the loyalty of 53 percent of voters 65 and older, compared to 38 percent for Obama.

Call it generation gap, the senior population sticking to conservative Republican issues while the younger embrace the more open-minded Democratic platform.

Even in Kootenai County, voters with decades between them are clinging to opposite loyalties.

Horning laid out what she wants the next presidential administration to achieve. More jobs. Bringing the country back to economic solvency.

And a Republican candidate who won't apologize for the country, the Wallace woman said.

"I hope and pray that enough people vote for Romney," she said. "Romney and Ryan, they have experience. Obama has no experience. He isn't capable of making decisions that need to be made for this country."

She also supports a candidate who takes her side on social issues.

"I don't believe in same-sex marriage," Horning said, jutting out her index finger as she spoke. "I believe it is so wrong for our country."

The issues close to Beatty's heart are similar: He wants more jobs, lower taxes, a humming economy again.

The Post Falls teen also hopes for a bigger push for gay rights.

Obama is the answer for all of that, the college student believes, if only because the president holds the same philosophical stance as Beatty on equal rights and other issues.

And Beatty, himself gay, was grateful to see Don't Ask Don't Tell repealed under the Obama administration.

"I've never thought of joining the military, but one of the main things that would've stopped me is if I couldn't openly enroll," Beatty said.

Nancy Kosonen, 60, associates Obama's name with all the things she sees wrong in the country today.

"I don't like what Obama has done," said Kosonen, an Osburn resident. "The health care act, the economy, unemployment."

The nation needs a businessman to close its economic wounds, Kosonen believes.

One like Romney.

She agreed with her friends that the country is basically like a corporation. Who better to address the deficit than someone familiar with managing big business?

"I appreciate his past, what he did for the Olympics," Kosonen said of Romney's role in buoying the 2002 Winter Olympics. "It was basically falling apart."

Carmen Murphy, 19, said she does think Romney has some good ideas.

But one of the Post Falls girl's greatest concerns is Romney turning the country into a business.

"I know he's money savvy," the North Idaho College student said. "But the country is not a business."

Murphy is happy voting for Obama, she added, because she believes his economic programs are slowly making progress.

And as a pre-med student, Murphy applauds Obama's Affordable Care Act and its intent to arm everyone with health insurance.

"I have a strong interest in the medical field," she said. "I believe everyone deserves good healthcare."

Ashton Clark, 19, said he does blame Obama for higher gas prices and sluggish job growth.

But the Coeur d'Alene resident still thinks the current president is the best man for the job.

"I believe in his four years he's achieved a lot, in regard to saving our country from foreign enemies, such as going after Osama Bin Laden," said Clark, who is politically Independent. "And also helping with political unrest in Egypt and Libya and African nations."

Clark thinks Romney, while smart, would bungle interactions with the nation's foreign enemies. Romney just doesn't have the experience for that level of decision making, he said.

"I'm voting for Obama because he's had four years of experience," Clark said. "He has a greater understanding of the White House, compared to Romney."

Norman Ernst, 75, is also leery of Romney.

"He has a mouth that gets him into trouble," Ernst grumbled at the Post Falls Senior Center on Friday. "You know, I wish it was somebody besides him."

But Romney still has the Hauser man's vote, he said, because Ernst worries about the larger government that Obama is promoting.

"He's leading this country to socialism, bringing in the medical change and all this stuff," Ernst said. "Mitt might be better. He can't get any worse."

There are exceptions to every trend.

Like Jim White of Post Falls.

The 73-year-old will never vote for a Republican, he said. Especially not Romney.

"He has no answers to anything," the Post Falls man said. "He doesn't know how he's gong to create jobs. He hasn't come up with any ideas."

Obama is the lesser of two evils, in White's blunt opinion.

He thinks the economy is a little better off because the current administration, even if the president hasn't come through on other promises.

White doesn't blame Obama for that, either. Partisanship has stymied the president's efforts, he said, Republicans always leaning farther right whenever the president tries to compromise.

"All these four years, Republicans have done everything to buck him," White said. "They've wanted him to fail since day one."

That's where the country's improvement really needs to start, he said. People just dropping their partisan blinders and listening to the other side, for a change.

"Do you see us getting past partisanship in our lifetimes?" White said. "Probably not. Republicans can't get even get along amongst themselves."