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McCain’s Age Redux

Posted by PETE ABEL, Managing Editor in At TMV.
May 29th, 2008 | Comments

Every time the matter of McCain’s age is raised, I yawn. I know it’s an aspect of the candidate that is worthy of some discussion, especially in the context of what is possibly the hardest, most taxing job in the world. At the same time, I have trouble fretting too much about the Senator’s almost-72 years. My apathy is perhaps best explained by what Groucho Marx once said: “Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.”

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runasim

I've been thinking about how difficult it can be to talk about the obvious.
Race, gender and age do matter in calculating a candidate's success, yet to say so outloud is taken as evidence of bias.

The race card and the gender card can be played to rally support as well as to denigrate. In a subtle way, McCain is using the age card to highlight his age as representative of experience and wisdom in contrast to Obama's youth and indexperience. .
Since almost any word in the dictionary can result in a political firestorm, I think the day is approaching when it will be impossible to identify the physical attributes of candidates without controversy at all.

DLS

The age remark about McCain is not only cheap and stupid but it backfires immediately among knowledgeable people because the person with the age-related liability and associated experience-dearth liability is, of course, Obama.

Do the Dems (particularly Obama fans) really want to keep wrecking themselves?

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