How old is too old to run the country? The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, will turn 78 in June. President Biden will turn 82 shortly after the election. Mr. Biden is already the oldest chief executive in U.S. history, succeeding Mr. Trump who had been the oldest (70) at inauguration in 2020. Both men have made countless verbal gaffes or incoherent remarks at rallies and news conferences.
Past presidential (and vice presidential) candidates have successfully dealt with questions about their age, mental fitness and health. In 1955, President Eisenhower nearly died from a heart attack. His ultimate transparency and strong recovery assured voters he was fit for another four years, and he trounced Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 election.
Ronald Reagan faced questions about his age and wits as early as the mid-1970s when he sought the GOP nomination against Gerald Ford. But it was in a 1984 debate against Democratic challenger Walter Mondale when Reagan, then 73 and coming off a poor performance in a prior debate, delivered one of the most effective one-liners in recent memory.
“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” said Reagan to loud laughter from the audience, the moderators and even his opponent. Reagan, then the oldest-ever occupant of the Oval Office, won 49 states to Mondale’s one in the Electoral College.
In this episode of History As It Happens, presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky discusses the sensitive dynamics surrounding age in politics, from candidates deemed too young and inexperienced to those who appeared too old and fading.
“I don’t think [age] has been decisive in any [election] in American history. This year is perhaps when it’s been the most front and center, and maybe that’s a reflection of social media or the fact that both candidates are older,” said Ms. Chervinsky, the author of the forthcoming “Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic.”
“Youth tends to be an asset when it comes at a point when one party has been in power for a while,” Ms. Chervinsky said, referring to the potency of Bill Clinton’s candidacy in 1992 or Barack Obama’s in 2008.
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