Many thanks to stalwart friends and colleagues Gary Jason, Jack Pitney, Jan Allard, Monica Morris, David Sadava, Bill Frey, Ralph Rossum, Joe Cardoza, Jonathan Tilove, and a very special colleague and pal, the late Judith Merkle. I very much appreciate Greg O’Neill, H. R. “Rick” Moody, Bob Binstock, and Rob Hudson welcoming me into the ranks of gerontologists. John Rother and many others at AARP were extremely generous with time and insights.
My editor at UC Press, Naomi Schneider, was wonderfully supportive in reading numerous chapter drafts and, above all, extremely patient in providing generous deadline extensions to incorporate the unpredictable, unfolding developments of 2008 and 2010 that have proved so crucial in the saga of aging boomers, AARP, and the coming entitlement battles. Elisabeth Magnus was a tireless, sharp-eyed copy editor. My literary agent, Jill Marsal, facilitated my getting together with UC Press. I’ve also been aided by able student assistants, Matt Horwitz, Alison Strother, and Reed MacPhail.
I am grateful for several grants sustaining the research over the years. More than a decade ago, the Sarah Scaife Foundation provided valuable seed money for this research, as did the Earhart Foundation. More recently, I was aided by several smaller grants from Claremont McKenna College research institutes, including the Benjamin Z. Gould Center, the Berger Institute for the Study of Work, Family, and Children, and the Office of the Dean of Faculty.
Former Claremont McKenna College president Jack Stark, current president Pamela B. Gann, deans Anthony Fucaloro, Jerry Garris, and Gregory Hess, and Government Department chair Ralph Rossum provided academic sanctuary for a politically incorrect sociologist. And a special salute to Jonathan Knight, former director of the American Association of University Professors’ Office of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance—whose legal acumen and blunt e-mails helped ensure that “sanctuary” finally became “tenure.”
Portions of chapters 2 through 4 appeared in abbreviated form in “Political Power and the Baby Boomers” in editor Robert Hudson’s The New Politics of Old Age Policy, 2nd ed., © The Johns Hopkins University Press. Expanded and updated reprinting with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Quotation of the television interview of Bill Clinton by Charlie Rose is by permission of The Charlie Rose Show.
Quotation of David Walker and a listener on the Diane Rehm Show is by permission of National Public Radio’s The Diane Rehm Show from WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C.