The age of Hillary

With 44-year-old Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) having announced for the presidency in 2016 and other politicos such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), 43, and Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.), 47, expected to run, the Republican race promises a bevy of bright young neophytes short on national or international experience but long on ambition.

And why shouldn’t they run? Barack Obama, then 47, shattered the experience template in 2008, going from obscure Illinois state senator to undistinguished first-term U.S. senator to president-elect in four years.  Talk about a race to the top, Obama arguably had the thinnest resume of any new president since Warren G. Harding.  Nonetheless, many Americans warmed to the promise and future-oriented buzz of the attractive young speechmaker who easily defeated Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), then 72. 

{mosads}Despite the budding GOP children’s crusade, however, the Democrats look to take an entirely different demographic approach in 2016:  the older-is-wiser candidacy of Hillary Clinton, now 67, a grandmother and, sigh, wife of Bill for almost 40 years (cue Tammy Wynette).  If elected, Mrs. Clinton will be 69, the same age as Ronald Reagan when he first won the presidency in 1980.

The Reagan connection is key because if Obama broke the experience template, Reagan did the same for age.  The Gipper turned 70 only a few weeks after taking office.  He then survived an assassination attempt and completed two, yes,  transformative terms.  Reagan’s elections effectively inoculate Clinton on the age issue and may even help her on the gender front: if he did it, so can she.

At a time when, as we are told, 10,000 citizens retire daily and older Americans vote more consistently than younger Americans, Clinton is well-positioned to tap into the we’re-still-relevant current that animates Baby Boomers.  Advances in health and the kinds of jobs many middle-class retirees once held, as opposed to the manual labor of earlier generations, ensure longer-living retired voters should play a large role in coming election cycles.

And if retirees look to 2016 candidates to reaffirm views on relevance, health, and their own golden years, who is their best fit?  A young newbie-politico father with two small children like Cruz? Or Clinton, loyal wife and grandmother who, by her own admission, was broke in her fifties?  OK, ignore the last crack, but not the grandmother part nor Clinton’s decades-long role as (suffering) spouse to a talented lout.  These particular personas should resonate with the expanding cohort of retired Baby Boom voters.

While Clinton’s any-minute-now candidacy has sucked most of the oxygen (and money?) from the Democrat primary campaign, two other party seniors could yet emerge should her coronation server crash.  Vice President Joe Biden, now 72, or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.),  now 65, could fire up the Social Security-recipient base. Besides her relative youth, Warren has the edge here because Biden’s national resume is far more extensive and thus target-rich for media and opposition researchers. 

While an accomplished lawyer, Mrs. Clinton’s achievements as U.S. senator and secretary of state remain hazy at best, although she likely will run as a combination of Daniel Webster, Dean Acheson, and Susan B. Anthony.  Still, electing older presidents usually involves both improving the future and recapturing positive elements of the past.  A nation battered by foreign crisis, scandal, and stagflation turned to Reagan, who invoked time-honored Midwestern values while promoting America’s “city-on-a-hill” exceptionalism.  It is a bit unclear what part of the past Clinton will invoke.  Clearly not Benghazi, her vote for the Iraq War,  or reforming health care. 

Celebrating certain slices of the ‘90s will prove difficult, too, what with the First Cad lurking at campaign rallies.  Then again, the “it-was-just-about-sex” defense of Bill Clinton’s talking-head surrogates no doubt retains appeal for many Boomers who jumped, freak flag flying (or fraying), into the groovy happenings of the Sixties and the “est” encounters of the Me Decade Seventies.

In an era when audiences continue to applaud Meryl Streep, Mike Krzyewski and other post-60 Boomer achievers, Clinton’s decision to run, presumably to be proclaimed atop Mount Rushmore, actually will be unexceptional.  The age, or rather, the Age of Hillary, seems to demand it.  If her health is up to it, she believes in herself, and she can’t stand the thought of Jeb Bush as president-elect at 63 (whippersnapper!), then Let Hillary’s Voice Be Heard – even if many will have to turn up our hearing aids to listen.  

Hugins, 61, lives in Fairfax, Virginia and still likes Ike, who left office at 70.