True; Churhill didn't say that, frankly most politically charged quotes on the internet aren't said by whom their attributed to (Jefferson seems to get it the worst).
But what you say in the above is statistically about as inaccurate as possible (and that's without addressing the misuse of the word "regression").
It is a basic political fact that the younger a person is, the more likely they are to be liberal leaning, and people generally move to the right politically as they age. This is such a hard-wired politiclaly accepted fact, that both the DNC and RNC allocate millions of dollars attempting to exploit this via targeted marketing and market spend.
There's a good satire of internet quotations somewhere that I'm too lazy to look for, but the gist of it is: "The internet is great for education." - Abraham Lincoln.
That's generally why I do a fair bit of research before I quote people. Learned that lesson a few times.
As someone who has a degree in political science (one of my focuses, actually, was polling), I have to take umbrage with your criticisms, though.
It's less that people move right as they age, and more that definitions of what "liberal" and "conservative" mean change with generations. (Not so much with
economics, but with
social norms, absolutely). In the 50s and 60s, for example, you were a bit more "liberal" if you thought black people should be able to vote. Today, that is an expected norm, and you are rightly criticized if you think otherwise. As time goes on, social norms in America have become more and more inclusive and less exclusive. Landowner's rights -> Women's rights -> Civil rights -> (Gay rights today?). And as time goes on, culture changes to the point that people say things like "Why were women ever banned from voting to begin with?". In a few decades we
may all be saying "Why were gay people prevented from marrying, anyway?".
I'm inclined to believe from my education in the field that it's less that people move to the right (again, socially) and more that the definitions of social liberal and social conservative move to the left as time moves forward and circumstances change. I've read numerous studies that said that people's political beliefs don't change drastically from their late twenties onwards.
And as for regression, the non-mathematical definiton is "a return to a
former or less developed state." I don't see the fault there.
