Global Courant 2023-04-30 13:00:00
A walking performance by Ronald Reagan during the first presidential debate in 1984 raised more than a few eyebrows in the press and among Republican pollsters.
“Reagan’s Debate Performance Invites Open Speculation About His Ability to Serve,” read a headline in the Wall Street Journal. The Milwaukee Journal then wrote in an editorial 39 years before Axios: “White House aides reduced the likelihood of presidential blunders by limiting media access to Reagan.”
What is old is new again. On Friday, Axios questioned whether what it characterized as a delineated daily schedule from the White House was related to Joe Biden’s age, adding that “the White House rarely puts Biden in improv settings.”
Biden, already the oldest recorded US president, announced his bid for re-election this week. He would be 86 if he served two full terms, and his campaign launch has sparked a wave of analysis about whether age will be a factor for voters, including in these pages.
Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations who is running for president, brought up the issue of Biden’s age quite implicitly this week.
“The idea that (Biden) would make it to age 86 is not something that I think is likely,” Haley said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
here’s Nikki Haley on Fox News saying she doesn’t think it’s “probable” that Biden will live to be 86 years old pic.twitter.com/LU481pe4Hi
She has previously raised the highly unlikely prospect of a mental aptitude test for presidential candidates, clearly thinking of both Biden and Republican nominee and ex-President Donald Trump, who turns 77 next month. Reagan, for the record, was 73 during the aforementioned debate and went on to defeat Democrat Walter Mondale in the 1984 ballot.
Mental acuity a problem on Capitol Hill
Historically, only eight of 45 presidents have died in office, and not since 1963. That was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the fourth president to die as a result of gun violence.
The last of the four to die for health reasons was Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. Roosevelt suffered from a paralytic illness and numerous other health problems.
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Although Biden has exceeded the life expectancy of an average American man, the White House physician gave him a clean bill of health earlier this year. Biden’s most serious encounter with death actually occurred in his mid-40s, when he twice underwent brain surgery for aneurysms.
The issue of age and mental acuity has been a hot topic in Washington lately, as Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, has been absent for months. The absence “is because her health and memory have noticeably declined in recent years”, according to an Associated Press reportand has caused some of Biden’s judicial choices to stall on the committee she sits on.
On the Republican side, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 81, suffered a concussion and a rib injury in a fall that forced him out of DC for six weeks.
Will Harris help decide in ‘the margins’?
Given Biden’s age and day job, Vice President Kamala Harris could be called upon to campaign extensively in 2024, while Republicans could be expected to sound the alarm at the prospect of a possible Harris presidency being decided by Father Time , not by voters. Feinstein’s example illustrates that it’s not necessarily mortality that could theoretically put Harris in the Oval Office.
“When you vote for Joe Biden, you really count on a President Harris,” Haley said on Fox News.
Kamala Harris is shown with President Hakainde Hichilema in Lusaka, Zambia, on March 31. Harris has met privately with a number of world leaders since he was vice president. (Salim Dawood/AFP/Getty Images)
Biden was largely spared the rigors of a traditional 2020 campaign because a pandemic was declared in March of that year. He relied on a series of virtual summits and speeches.
In a polarized U.S. political scene following two razor-thin presidential elections, one that predicted a riot in the Capitol, the vice president factor can’t be out of hand this time around.
“If vice presidential candidates want to make a difference, they will make it to the margins,” Joel Goldstein, a historian of the vice presidency, told the AP. “But if you look at our recent history, a lot of our presidential elections have been decided in the margins.”
‘She’s not a good messenger’
The last vice presidential candidate believed to have really influenced voting was Sarah Palin, elected in 2008 by Republican nominee John McCain.
According to one analysis, there was theoretical “support for the proposition that a running mate is an important short-term factor influencing voter behavior”. But, said Jonathan Knuckey in that analysis published in 2012 in Political Research Quarterlythere were indications that “Palin may have contributed to a loss of support among floating voters.”
Sarah Palin shakes hands with a supporter after casting her vote on November 4, 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska. Palin’s selection as the vice presidential nominee excited many in the Republican party, though her impact on the 2008 election was debatable. (Johnny Wagner/Getty Images)
It is conceivable that a similar effect would play out in 2024, as Harris scores worse than Biden. In an AP-National Opinion Research Center poll conducted in January, 43 percent of American adults had a positive view of Biden, and 36 percent said the same about Harris. Among Democrats, Biden sat at 78 percent and Harris at 67 percent, though 10 percent said they didn’t know enough about Harris to have an opinion.
Harris served only one term as a U.S. Senator after a long career in California politics, and former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said in a podcast this week he believes she is still not a fully known quantity to many Americans.
Erin Perrine, a spokesperson for a superpolitical action committee (known as a super PAC) that supports Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, scoffed at the idea that Harris would be useful to Biden’s re-election chances.
“She’s not a good messenger,” Perrine told the AP. “She’s prone to not only stepping on the message, but throwing out word-salad replies, and then if she’s uncomfortable, burst into a fit of laughter.”
While Republican attacks on Harris focused on optics and not her frequent travels to see foreign leaders, Democrats are pointing to her efforts after last year’s seismic Supreme Court ruling prompted several states to back access to abortion. rotate or prohibit. In addition, access to some abortion drugs is now before the courts.
Harris has hosted White House summits on reproductive rights, speaking this week at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on the topic of women’s health, which Democrats believe will help mobilize their base in 2024.
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Biden is addressing his age as he runs for re-election
US President Joe Biden says he “looked closely” before deciding to run for re-election at age 80, but will let voters decide if he has what it takes.
At the risk of saying the obvious, added to the mix is the fact that Harris is also the first black and Asian vice president, with Indian ancestry.
Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster, said Harris “is probably better positioned to authentically connect with that critical emerging cohort of the American electorate that we absolutely depend on to win a majority.”
Of course, Harris is now being judged in a vacuum. Even if it was Trump who would emerge as the Republican presidential nominee, his former Vice President Mike Pence has essentially testified against him in courtso there will be a new candidate with their own performance and vulnerabilities for comparison and discussion with Harris.
