Both Parties Have to Confront Their ‘Senior’ Moment

B ob Dole’s death at age 98 after a battle with lung cancer reminds us of how much people can contribute in their 80s and beyond. A disabled veteran, Dole served as national chairman of a campaign that raised funds for the building of the National World War II Memorial. Until recently, Dole frequently spent mornings in his wheelchair at the entrance to the memorial greeting visiting veterans. He also was active as a lobbyist, established a public-policy institute in his native Kansas, and wrote his autobiography.

But all of that service came after Dole left public office following his loss, at age 73, to Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential race. Dole stepped down as Senate majority leader and resigned his Senate seat to make way for someone else to represent Kansas. He later said that, with perfect hindsight, he saw that he might have been a little too old to serve two terms if he had been elected president and very well might have served only one.

President Jimmy Carter, who at age 95 is the longest-lived chief executive in American history, said in 2019 that he didn’t believe he could have managed the most powerful office in the world at 80 years old.

Carter didn’t tie his comments to then 73-year-old President Donald Trump or to Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, both of whom were in their late 70s.

“I hope there’s an age limit,” Carter said during a speech in Atlanta. “If I were just 80 years old, if I was 15 years younger, I don’t believe I could undertake the duties I experienced when I was president.”

The Oval Office requires a president “to be very flexible with your mind,” he added. “You have to be able to go from one subject to another and concentrate on each one adequately and then put them together in a comprehensive way, like I did between [Menachem] Begin and [Anwar] Sadat with the [Camp David] peace agreement.”

The issue of leaders staying too long on the political stage has relevance right now.

President Joe Biden turned 79 last month. He passed his annual physical exam, but a new Morning Consult/Politico poll found that only 40 percent of Americans believe he is in “good health.” Only 46 percent felt he was “mentally fit.” Even Saturday Night Live recently ribbed Biden over whether he was “lucid.”

Biden insists he will run for reelection in 2024, but the Washington Post recently surveyed 28 Democratic strategists and officials. Almost all of them expressed private concerns about Biden running again. Some of the strategists worried that “another presidential bid would involve a much more rigorous schedule than the relatively calm 2020 campaign, which was largely conducted remotely because of the covid-19 pandemic.”

But Democrats have an age problem that goes well beyond Biden. House speaker Nancy Pelosi is 81 years old and has been silent about her plans to run for speaker again. Her deputy, House majority leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, is 82 years old. The No. 3 House Democrat is Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who is 81 years old.

In the Senate, majority leader Chuck Schumer is the spring chicken of the leadership bunch. He turned 72 last month. Schumer’s deputy, Senate majority whip Dick Durbin, is 77 years old.

Senate Democratic ranks will see a little fresh blood after next year’s midterms thanks to retirements — but only a little. Vermont senator Pat Leahy is leaving at age 81, after 48 years in office. His hand-picked successor will be Peter Welch, Vermont’s only House member. He is 74 years old.

A geriatric leadership problem extends to both parties. President Trump would be 78 if he ran for office again in 2024. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader, is 79 years old. In Iowa, GOP senator Chuck Grassley is running for reelection at age 89.

But overall it’s Democrats who face the biggest seniority problem. The Democrats in power today came of age in the 1960s, when Great Society programs were popular and the radical counterculture reigned supreme. They have learned nothing from those failures, and in their dotage, they have failed to contain the progressive forces that have endangered the party’s electoral prospects.

With a gargantuan bill like Biden’s Build Back Better plan, senior Democrats continue to insist on replaying their greatest hits from that era for a country where we know they can’t work.