I just finished watching Dr. Fauci, who is 81 years old, being interviewed about vaccinations and related matters on Face the Nation. He was fully engaged with the host, alert, animated (in a good way), super quick responding, with nuanced/thoughtful answers and considerations. He could have easily been 30 years old.
Fauci's performance further reminded me of Biden's age (just turning 80) his recent public appearances fielding questions, and the election and campaign season being less than two years away. And, should Biden win, being 82 at the Inauguration.
Hate saying it as I really like Biden as a person and his five decades of service to the country, but I think it's time for him step down and endorse another candidate.
I agree. The baton needs to go back to the nextgen again... and stay there this time already. We needed a competent caretaker in recovering from Trump and trying to recover from covid's impact... but it's time to draw a line and move forward with an eye on the future, which is not whatever boomers and silent gen might like that would too often seem to favor the worst of their long-favored instincts. The f'g planet is dying and we elders make a spectacle of ourselves still catering to excesses of unsustainable capitalism.
I get why that reversion to older candidates happened on the Dem side because of the heavy lean up front from the DNC for Clinton, and the uncertainty over Sanders from more conservative Dems as that competition developed later on.
But I do fault the Rs for caving in to Trump, because there were better --and younger-- choices out there from among the original 17-person array. Sure the populist mood of that time was a huge factor there in the end, but the RNC did have options they didn't exercise.
Trump's appeal to white supremacists in 2016 was offering the GOP a broadened potential base on a platter, and they went there. They won, but they might also have won if Kasich had been their nominee instead because of his appeal to right-leaning centrists. Kasich was certainly capable of more than competent leadership of our executive branch, whatever we might have thought of his political lean or particular exercise of governance in Ohio.
Now Kasich is 70 and so hardly a spring chicken, but he was only 64 in 2016... and believe me when I say that the difference between 65 and 75 is no joke even for those in good health. So someone expecting to be able to run for a second term of a USA presidency from a start in their 70s is always going to make it hard on their party, really. It's not just a matter of "ageism". The job is a killer no matter one's age, but imo running the USA is not for someone closing in on their 80s.
I would have loved to see a 2016 race between Kasich and Klobuchar... yeah even in an era of high populism amongst voters previously leaning to policies of either major party.
Anyway the Dems need to give their younger bench some space and spotlight starting real soon now. They have competent potential nominees who already did gain some national name recognition in 2020. And Biden needs to give Harris more exposure. She has gained perhaps unexpected and generally high approval from abroad from time to time, but the American press doesn't lend her much oxygen, so we don't really know whether and how she has grown as a potential President-in-waiting and as an extension of Biden's policies (or how she would modify them).
At the least if Harris gets more media coverage in the months ahead, she'll elicit some pushback from other worthy Dem candidates for 2024 before primary season rolls out. We should not have to find ourselves having to choose from "who's that?" versus DeSantis or whoever muscles in on the GOP side... depending on how Trump fares v attention from DoJ and fading (or mocking) attention from Rupert Murdoch. Democrats need to be able to start appealing to whatever remains of the center as soon as possible. A good time can't be any better than when the right has just proven disappointing in a recent election.
