Older than that now: Generations clash over Clinton, Sanders, Trump

Lizette Alicea cast her first vote for Bill Clinton in 1992. On Wednesday, the West Philadelphia mom nearly lost her voice cheering for Hillary Clinton at a rally in Fishtown.

"The Clintons, for me, have always been a part of my political DNA," Alicea, 46, said.

Political DNA that she did not pass on to her son.

He inherited her brown eyes, taste for Puerto Rican food, and love of Pearl Jam's music. But when it's time to pull a lever, he's for Bernie Sanders.

"I think Bernie is the first thing where we're on totally opposing sides," said Enrique Hernandez, 29. "I know not to talk to her about it, because it just seems like it leads to a bad conversation."

As Pennsylvanians prepare to vote in the primary next week, generational splits within families are making for awkward, if not heated, conversations.

Sanders, 74, has become an unlikely champion of millennials, and for the second time in eight years, some younger voters are trying to steer their elders away from Clinton - or from Donald Trump.

" 'Poor Hillary' in some ways, right?" Christopher Borick, director of Muhlenberg College's Institute of Public Opinion, said of the former secretary of state. "In both years [2008 and 2016] she's the inevitable candidate, and some spark surrounding an alternative resonated. Young voters have been captured by the excitement of these campaigns and the messages."

Borick said it's many of the same young Barack Obama supporters - now eight years older - who are feeling the Bern.

Obama, Borick said, attracted voters with big concepts - hope and change and the excitement of his historic candidacy. "With Sanders, the packaging might not be as attractive to young voters, but the message certainly has been," he said.

Borick said that even in the world of pollsters and pundits, "people love talking about internal family divides." He knows: His wife supports Clinton, but the couple's eldest son is for Sanders.

And this year, Borick said, nothing divides families like The Donald.

"You hear these stories in the field all the time, but those divisions are going to be mild compared to any time Trump is thrown into the equation. The emotion with a Trump supporter and a non-Trump supporter, beware, because it could evolve pretty quickly. ... The anti-Trump feelings are so intense, and some of the pro-Trump feelings are intense. You put that into a family dynamic and you're going to have some interesting discussions around the dinner table."

Eight years ago, when Robert P. Casey Jr. became one of the first major Democratic officeholders to endorse Obama over Clinton, the Pennsylvania senator credited his four daughters with nudging him. He told of how his young daughter Elyse sat so "transfixed" watching the candidate speak on TV that she told a friend who called, "I can't talk to you now - I am listening to Barack Obama."

Alicea had her son at 17 and raised him as a single mother. She agrees with Clinton on women's issues, likes her experience and track record on family and children's issues.

"I don't agree with some things she's done, but I completely understand some packages are packaged with things we don't agree with, and the bigger picture is what we're trying to get done," she said.

Her son, Hernandez, is a producer for a reality TV show in Los Angeles. He lives a vegan lifestyle and likes Sanders because of the Vermont senator's focus on the environment.

"He was, for me, the first politician who spoke about energy right off the bat, and it was all about basing our economy on sustainable energy, and that was super-attractive," Hernandez said.

When Hernandez visited his mother this month for a joint birthday celebration, the home filled with family, friends, and political discourse.

"Revolution seems to be a very touchy word when it comes to my mom's demographic, because they don't want to stop the progress," Hernandez said. "But I think what Bernie stands for is, everything has to change but not in a destructive way."

Alicea, who works in TV ad sales, thinks her son's support for Sanders has a lot to do with the excitement of the campaign and where he is in his life - he's not a parent.

"A 29-year-old who doesn't have any kids, his voice may matter but his concerns are very different," she said. "I adore him and I welcome the opportunity to be in disagreement with him, because in my mind, we're not so far apart on the issues as much as we're really far apart on the delivery."

At a Sanders rally attended by thousands at Pennsylvania State University this week, students in line lamented parents who just don't get it.

"My mom and grandma are going to vote for Hillary," said freshman Briana Jones, 18, of Philadelphia, a Sanders supporter. "My grandma says, 'Bernie don't like Wall Street. That's all he talks about.' I'm, like, 'That's not all he talks about.' "

Translating youth enthusiasm into turnout, though, is always a challenge - particularly in states like Pennsylvania with closed primaries, said Borick, the political science professor.

Also, the state's electorate overall is old, and Clinton does particularly well with older women.

The generational divide over Clinton made national news in February when feminist Gloria Steinem said young women who supported Sanders were following the boys.

Another former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, fueled the fire by saying there was "a special place in hell for women who don't help each other."

Some young women do support Clinton, of course. Victoria Perrone, 26, who grew up in Delaware County and went to Strath Haven High School, has worked in Democratic politics for five years. She favors Clinton - but her stepmother, Alice Perrone, a registered Republican who is retired and living in Phoenixville, is for Trump.

"We've pretty much stopped talking about this election at all because of Donald Trump," Victoria Perrone said. "He's a very divisive person, and I don't want to engage."

Perrone is registered to vote in Pennsylvania but recently took a political consulting job in Washington. Her stepmother, retired from the pharmaceutical industry, is a devout Catholic, lives in a golf-course community, plays tennis and golf, and supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio before he quit the GOP race.

Now she likes Trump.

"I think, as president, he would really stir up the troops and he's a smart man. He's established a very big business, and he has a lot of good people he'll get to help him," Alice Perrone said.

She said she doesn't trust Clinton and wants someone who will shake things up.

She said of Trump: "I do like the fact that he's kind of almost a renegade, not like everybody else, not afraid to say what he thinks. Some of these politicians are so well-versed in what the proper 'speak' is, it's annoying."

While she and her stepdaughter avoid election talk, they say their relationship is strong. They visited in Washington on a weekend earlier this month.

"Hey, she's young, she works really hard. Her father says she'll cross that line sometime when she gets older - or at least that's what he dreams," Alice Perrone said. "So for now, we just don't go there."

Instead, they focus on things they both support.

"Villanova," Alice Perrone said, "dominated most of the weekend conversation."

jterruso@phillynews.com

215-854-5506@juliaterruso

Staff writer Claudia Vargas contributed to this article.