While David Brooks doesn’t put this in generational terms, that is clearly the underlying force of what he’s describing in today’s Times column:
The real core of [Obama's] financial support is something else, the rising class of information age analysts. Once, the wealthy were solidly Republican. But the information age rewards education with money. There are many smart high achievers who grew up in liberal suburbs around San Francisco, L.A. and New York, went to left-leaning universities like Harvard and Berkeley and took their values with them when they became investment bankers, doctors and litigators. …
The trends are pretty clear: rising economic sectors tend to favor Democrats while declining economic sectors are more likely to favor Republicans. The Democratic Party (not just Obama) has huge fund-raising advantages among people who work in electronics, communications, law and the catchall category of finance, insurance and real estate. Republicans have the advantage in agribusiness, oil and gas and transportation. Which set of sectors do you think are going to grow most quickly in this century’s service economy.
Brooks has really hit his stride. I find him to be the only unpredictable, must-read columnist at the Times. Maureen Dowd has become a caricature, Paul Krugman is still worthwhile but never unpredictable, Bob Herbert is neither worthwhile or unpredictable, Thomas Friedman needs no further piling on, William Kristol is a joke, etc.