Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

The past few weeks a lot of people have been jumping into the race for the Presidency of the United States for which an election will be held in November of 2024. Apparently it takes about 12 months for the major political parties to decide who should carry their banner.

The two leading candidates have both announced their intentions to run. President Joseph Biden has said he will run for second term. Past president Donald J. Trump has said he will seek the office again.

At this is written, at least a half dozen additional Republicans have indicated they will compete with Mr. Trump for the right to be supported by the Republican party. Only  a couple of Democrats have stepped forward to see if they can win the right to represent Democrats in the election.

Both parties have a problem; there are a significant number of people who don’t want to see either party’s current leading candidate on the ballot. A recent poll showed that number at 49%.

One factor affecting both current President Biden and former President Trump is age. Biden would be 82 when taking office while Trump would be 77. There are a lot of people who function pretty well at that age, heck, I’m in between them. But I wouldn’t consider running for president. I exercise daily and like to think I’m in better shape than many people my age but I wouldn’t even think about taking on a 24-hour-a-day job.

This nation has had a couple of times when it had presidents who weren’t able to function and in both cases they were younger than 77. Woodrow Wilson was disabled by a stroke and his wife largely filled in for him. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was months from death when he ran for his fourth term and his staff and insiders knew it. But we were so close to the end of WWII that nobody wanted to change presidents until the war was over.

We’ve never had a president over 80 before. Ronald Reagan was 78 when he completed his second term and he was one of the oldest presidents then. But we have had presidents who lived well beyond 80 after their presidential term and did well. Jimmy Carter is 98 but was active in Habitat for Humanity building houses into his early 90s. George H.W. Bush lived into his 90s.

It is impossible to predict how age will affect a person’s ability to serve as president. It is true that the odds that ability may be hampered by age increases as a person gets older.

Both parties have younger people with governing experience. A half dozen Republicans have stepped forward to challenge Trump, only a couple of Democrats have stepped forward to challenge Biden. Many Democrats and Republicans feel that Biden would win a second showdown between the two.

President Biden no doubt announced his reelection bid because if he didn’t, he would be considered a lame duck. Presidents have a tough time getting much done near the end of their terms because the opposing political party will wait until after the next election when it hopes to have the presidency itself. So I can understand that, but it also keeps other qualified candidates from getting ready.

I can remember writing many years ago about political parties and smoke filled rooms where parties selected their nominees. And I thought then open primaries would be a good idea.

Now I’m having doubts. We have seen where a candidate who is proves to be popular with the people can dominate the party, not always to the party’s benefit.

The good thing about this is that the public will ultimately decide, as it should, who our next president will be. If age is the issue some polls say it is, the younger candidate might have an edge on that issue. And who knows, with 18 months until election day some other issue might come front and center.