19 April 2008

The age war

Seems Jack Murtha (D-PA), who's 75 himself, thinks the 71-year-old John McCain is too old to be running for president. Hillary, of course, is a near-baby at 60 (though she doesn't look a day over 65), and Barack is a child at 46 (and, lest there be any argument, according to the Constitution "no person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.").

Just for comparison's sake: here are the ages of previous Presidents when elected (six VPs weren't elected; their president died from any of several causes):
George Washington 56
John Adams 61
Thomas Jefferson 57
James Madison 57
James Monroe 58
John Quincy Adams 57
Andrew Jackson 61
Martin van Buren 54
William Harrison 67
John Tyler
James Polk 49
Zachary Taylor 63 (died on 4 July from eating cherries and milk)
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce 47
James Buchanan 65
Abraham Lincoln 51
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant 46
Rutherford B. Hayes 54
James Garfield 49
Chester A. Arthur (because Garfield was assassinated)
Grover Cleveland 47
Benjamin Harrison 55
William McKinley 53
Theodore Roosevelt 42 (because McKinley was assassinated)
William Taft 51
Woodrow Wilson 55
William Harding 55
Calvin Coolidge (because Harding died in office)
Herbert Hoover 54
Franklin Roosevelt 50
Harry Truman 60 (because Roosevelt died in office)
Dwight Eisenhower 62
John Fitzgerald Kennedy 43
Lyndon Johnson 55 (because Kennedy was assassinated)
Richard Nixon 55
Gerald Ford 61 (because Nixon resigned)
James Carter 52
Ronald Reagan 69
George Herbert Walker Bush 64
William Clinton 46
George Walker Bush 58

So, of the 37 presidents actually elected to office, eight were in their forties, nineteen were in their fifties, ten were in their sixties, and none were in their seventies when elected.
Does that make McCain too old?
Given that everyone is living longer these days (my parents outlived theirs by over a decade, and even I might do that well), perhaps it's high time we elected someone of august age, if only as inspiration to the rest of us.
On the other end of the spectrum, Obama is both legally and experientially old enough to be elected.
Fred Thompson, of course, was ten years older than Rico when he bowed out of the race, which would otherwise have been about fucking perfect...

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