How old is Joe Biden? Old enough that one of the dominant features of his presidency is a belief that he just does not have, in addition to all his other failings, the drive or energy necessary to be the most powerful man in the world. Instead, he just seems like a senior citizen who needs to retire and be wheeled into the sunset.
But Biden, a longtime contender for the top job, has evidently decided that he wants to stay in it and so is trying to rebut the claims that he is now far too old to be the Commander in Chief and leader of the free world,
His latest attempt didn’t go so well. It came during his Labor Day speech in Pennsylvania, during which he told the gathered crowd that he should be president because he has been “doing this longer than anyone.” Though meant mainly as a joke, it served mainly as a reminder that he has spent most of his life in elected office and is somehow even older than he looks.
That came in response to an audience member yelling, “(Inaudible) have to be 89. You’ll live to be 90!” Biden, laughing and responding, said, “I tell you what, someone said, “You know, that Biden, he’s getting old, man. I tell you what.” Well, guess what? Guess what? I can — and, you know, the only thing that comes with age is a little bit of wisdom. I — but I, I’ve been doing this longer than anybody. And guess what? I’m going to continue to do it with your help.”
Peter Doocy, explaining why Biden might have gone out on a limb and tried to joke about his age to acclimatize his voters to it, said, “That seems to be a subtle response to the claim made by an author who interviewed 300 people in Biden world for a new book, who said this weekend that President Biden could bow out.”
Biden could also have been worrying about a poll showing that about two in three Democrats think Biden is too old to run. That poll, conducted by the Wall Street Journal, found, “Although the candidates are only three years apart, 73% of voters said they feel Biden is too old to seek a second term, compared with 47% of voters who said the same of the 77-year-old Trump. Two-thirds of Democrats said Biden was too old to run again.”
The Biden comment could also have been an attempt to allude to the famous, and widely liked at the time, comment from Reagan that he would not mock his opponent’s youth-caused inexperience when asked about age being an issue in the campaign. In that memorable quote, Reagan said, “I want you to know also 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.”
Watch that speech here (the comment occurs around the 2:50 mark):
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
"*" indicates required fields