Sanders, Biden confront age concerns
MARSHALLTOWN, IOWA >> Bernie Sanders insists he feels better than ever less than a month after heart surgery, but his return to the campaign trail this week sparked new questions about the unusually old age of the Democratic Party’s leading 2020 presidential candidates.
Both Sanders, 78, and Joe Biden, 76, suggest their age isn’t a major issue, but voters, particularly older voters, aren’t so sure.
Gordon Lundberg, a 71-year-old retired Lutheran pastor from Ames, said candidates’ health is a key issue for him because he understands how it feels to age. He’s leaning toward Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts because, even though she’s 70, “She’s the most liberal and she’s not got one foot in the grave yet.”
“Bernie’s just too darn old. And so is Biden,” Lundberg said. “They look old, they sound old, they are old. They fall in the shower, and they get heart attacks!”
Polling has suggested that a significant number of Americans believe a candidate in his or her late 70s is too old to be president. If elected, Sanders would take office having already exceeded the average U.S. life expectancy of 78.6 years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. Biden would be just a few months away.
Warren also would be the oldest new president in history, eclipsing President Donald Trump, who himself eclipsed Ronald Reagan.
While Biden, the former vice president, has often laughed off questions about his age, the issue is one that Sanders has been forced to confront more directly as he returned to Iowa this week. Sanders, a senator from Vermont, is traveling with his wife and campaign manager, whose responsibilities include ensuring that he take modest precautions not to overexert himself, takes daily walks of at least half an hour with no phone calls and sticks to a healthier diet.
“He wants to run,” said campaign manager Faiz Shakir, who said he would likely accompany Sanders on the campaign trail for the next month. “Our job is to make sure he knows he’s in a marathon, not a sprint.”
Sanders opened up about his health during an interview at a coffee shop in Des Moines..
Sanders told The Associated Press that he was looking forward to “a 100% recovery — full recovery.”
“Now I got three good arteries,” he said. “And three good arteries are better than two good arteries. So, I’m feeling pretty good.”
Meanwhile, Biden called his age “a legitimate question” in an interview days after entering the presidential race in April and said it’s up to voters to “watch me” and decide for themselves.
Biden also dismissed questions about his age, saying, if anything, it was an advantage.
“With age comes experience, with experience comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes judgment,” Biden said in a “60 Minutes” interview set to air Sunday.