Asking seniors about age limit for presidency
Bob Tunnell watched Joe Biden closely during the Democratic presidential candidates debate, mainly to see if the former vice president “will hold up. In past debates, he has not been able to sustain himself. There’s a question about his viability and his health.”
Tunnell isn’t some young punk trying to push an old guy off the national stage. He is 80 — two years older than Biden will be on inauguration day 2021. If elected, Biden would be the oldest president ever to begin his first term.
Tunnell says it’s occasionally hard to keep thoughts straight at his age. He has a hard time imagining a 78yearold keeping up with the demands of being leader of the free world.
“You can’t remember words. You can’t remember names,” Tunnell said. “Biden had that
problem a couple of debates ago.”
But until debate moderator Erin Burnett tiptoed Tuesday into the “issue of candidates and their health,” age had been the unspoken topic in the Democratic campaign. Elizabeth Warren is 70, and Sen. Bernie Sanders is 78 and just had a heart attack. President Trump is their contemporary — he’s 73.
It all points to a hard, if uncomfortable, actuarial fact: As of 2016, the average 65yearold American woman could expect to live another 20 years, while men had an average of 18 years left, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Former President Jimmy Carter recently called for an “age limit” to the presidency. And 80, Carter said, is too old.
“If I was 15 years younger,” the 95yearold Carter said last month, “I don’t believe I could undertake the duties I experienced when I was president. You had to be very flexible with your mind. 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.”
But Louise Aronson, author of “Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life,” said there is a “tremendous variability” in old age.
“If you take one 2yearold, absent some catastrophic condition, they’re all pretty much the same worldwide,” Aronson told WBUR’s “Here and Now.” “That is not true of 80yearolds.”
Only 3% of Democratic voters think the 70s is the optimal age for a president, according to a recent Pew Research study. Most say the 50s are just right.
Tunnell watched Tuesday’s debate at the Rossmoor retirement development in Walnut Creek with members of the community’s Democratic club — the largest in the nation, with 1,075 members. Like the septuagenarians running for president, many in the welltodo, largely white community are exceptional. Rossmoor is filled with retired Ph.D.s and captains of industry, some of whom are champion runners and swimmers in their age group. Others are young at heart. Rossmoor has long had a booming medical marijuana club, and some residents enjoy cannabis for its nonmedicinal pleasures.
“Seventy is the new 50,” said Lee Herschman, 81.
None of the club members who were watching with Tunnell on Tuesday night had suffered heart attacks, as Sanders did. But several have had cancer, knee replacements and spinal fusions. Cataracts and arthritis are common. Roughly 85% of seniors nationwide have at least one chronic ailment, and 3 in 4 have more.
“I, for one, wake up and say, ‘Oh, another day above ground. Great!’” said club president Katha Hartley, 79. “We have far more ailments which we tend to share, sometimes tediously. One of my friends calls it the organ recital.”
However, like a presidential candidate making four stops a day on the campaign trail, Rossmoor club members also have a preternatural store of energy. Since April, they have sent 2 million texts and handwritten 30,000 letters to voters in 12 swing states.
“That’s what keeps us nimble,” said Marcia McLean, 79, flexing her hands. “Writing all those letters.”
They wrestle with the duality of aging every day, which makes them able both to relate to the presidential candidates who are on the back side of 70 and call them out for their fumbles.
Tunnell and other club members wanted to see if Biden would serve up word salads Tuesday, as he had at times in previous debates.
“He had that problem tonight,” McLean said afterward, noting that Biden confused Iraq for Afghanistan when discussing U.S. foreign policy. “There were several times he couldn’t remember something.”
“But he did that when he was in his 60s, too,” said Tunnell, who praised Biden for “showing how powerful he is” on foreign affairs.
Still, Tunnell said he knows the feeling when you “can’t quite recall a common name you knew. Or you can’t quite recall a word.” He could see the pitfalls for Biden if the stumbles continue. “People may lose confidence in a person who can’t communicate smoothly and effectively.”
Tunnell suggested that Biden acknowledge his agerelated gaffes. He should “probably make clear that can happen when you get older and say, ‘But I can still think effectively. It may take me a long time to recall common names.’ ”
Some young people can’t remember names, Herschman pointed out.
“The difference,” McLean said, “is that a younger person will do that and not think that much about it. But when we do it, we worry about it more.”
Biden parried the debate question about his “health” with what appeared to be a wellrehearsed response. “One of the reasons I’m running is because of my age and my experience. With it comes wisdom,” Biden said.
Warren said she “will outwork, outorganize and outlast anyone.”
Sanders, making his first campaignrelated appearance since his heart attack, said he would be “mounting a vigorous campaign all over this country. That is how I think I can reassure the American people.”
As the debate was drawing to a close, news broke that Sanders was getting the endorsement of the youngest member of Congress, 30yearold Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, DN.Y.
Mounting a vigorous campaign, however, will be challenging for Sanders, the Rossmoorians agreed. McLean said losing “physical stamina” was part of her aging.
“At 65, I could do much more,” she said. “But now that I’m turning 80, just the mere fact that I’m trying to do the same things I was trying to do at 65 is hard. If I have a meeting in the morning, then one in the afternoon and in the evening — just not being able to physically do that, and I’m in pretty good shape, concerns me.”
McLean marveled at the energy of 79yearold House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “I bet she takes a nap.”
“Oh, she naps,” said Judy Bank, 70. “I know she naps.”
“Everybody takes a nap,” Tunnell said.
“No, Bob, that’s not true,” Hartley said.
“I do,” Tunnell said.