Biden's age may well be an issue - but Republicans should be weary of focusing on it.
Focus on the superficial might mean that the Democrats' record in office goes unscrutinised.
“I don’t like Joe Biden – he’s too old”.
I’ve already begun another piece with this quote from US commentator Fran Lebowitz, told to me when she was touring the UK last year. But it’s still pertinent, and especially so in the week where Biden’s supposed physical frailty is once again on the agenda.
Two columns published in the Sundays this morning – one by Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times, and one by Will Hutton in The Observer – make the case for Biden’s age being an issue, or not. Glancy argues that Biden’s advancing age makes him an increasing liability for the Democratic Party. Hutton argues that, regardless of his much talked about fall on Thursday, POTUS remains incredibly agile in terms of his political manoeuvring.
Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle - but I do wonder whether Republicans (as well as restless, potentially still ambitious Democrats) may be making a mistake in focusing so much on the President’s age.
For one, the Republican Party, even as it rolls out new candidates with increasing speed, still seems set to select Donald Trump as its candidate. The constant attacks on Biden’s age could seem a little redundant when his presumed opponent is only four years younger (and, by all accounts, leads a considerably less healthy lifestyle).
Where the age difference between the two is fairly negligible, the issue will likely come down to the temperament of the two candidates, as it did in the last election. It is fairly rare for an incumbent candidate, where they have only served one term and so can run for a second, to fail to secure re-election. Before Trump came George H. W. Bush in 1993 and Jimmy Carter in 1981. The only other one-whole-term president in that century was Herbert Hoover, whose principle namesake was a series of slums which came out of the Great Depression.
Of course, were Trump not to be selected by the GOP, then attacks on Biden’s age could pay dividends – especially if his eventual opponent was the fairly youthful Ron DeSantis (who, were he to win, would be the third youngest President-elect ever, and the youngest since John F Kennedy).
But why else might it be a mistake to focus on Biden’s age? Well, because it could mean that his record in office escapes the level of scrutiny that one might expect from a campaign in which policy really should be the defining issue.
Whilst Hutton’s column sings Biden’s praises in terms of his substantial policy achievements, that is to be expected; Hutton is on the centre-left and is writing for a publication of the same political persuasion. Republicans – needless to say – don’t think much of Biden’s policy record; pretty much everything that he is done in office is anathema to them – be it the focus on climate change, the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, the support for abortion rights, or, perhaps most concerningly, his support for Ukraine.
The problem with banging on relentlessly about Biden’s age is that there is less room in the political discourse for scrutiny of his agenda. In the UK, following years of elections that were focused on culture (or Brexit) wars, we seem to be heading towards a general election next year which will largely be focused on policy.
It’s unclear what the discourse in the US will be in 2024 – the 2020 election was fought purely on Trump’s temperament, with a little dash of COVID thrown in. But with so many challenges – Russian and Chinese aggression, AI’s rapid pace of acceleration, and the climate crisis, to name a few – could relentless focus on the incumbent candidate’s age end up making the GOP seem, well, a tad superficial?
When it comes to the personal versus the substance, Biden’s age probably fits somewhere neatly in the middle: to hold the office of POTUS does require a level of physical and mental agility that – it has to be said – Biden occasionally throws into question.
Margaret Thatcher was purported to have weighed in on the personal v substance debate, saying: ‘I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.’ However Biden and the Democrats may be feeling about attacks on his age right now, they may end up drawing comfort in the long run.