I don’t know any more than anyone else about Hilary Clinton’s health status or Presidential plans. I strongly hope she runs, because I’m confident that she would clobber any Republican and less confident that any other Democrat would do so. I’m glad to have my views validated by no less an expert on Presidential politics than Karl Rove. [Whatever the truth or falsity of the reports about Rove's sexual activity with underage goats, his expertise remains unmatched.]
One predictable and intended result of Rove’s low blow was to raise the age issue. Republicans, and reporters, who ignored the obvious signs of Ronald Reagan’s progressive dementia in the 1984 campaign.
(I remember vividly Reagan’s utterly confused closing in the first debate, and remember even more vividly the deafening silence from the political press corps and from Democrats that followed. Instead the buzz was about Reagan’s canned witticism on Mondale’s “youth and inexperience.” The Democrats suffer from a deficit of dirty players and subservient hacks, which on balance seems to me a good thing but can be costly at key moments.)
Charlie Cook of the National Journal - while making no reference to the the bestiality questions concerning Rove, which have as strong a factual basis as the brain-damage questions about Clinton - plays along with Rove’s nonsense by writing a beard-stroking column gravely pondering HRC’s age and her decision about whether to run. Topic sentence: “While Clinton’s age will be precisely the same as Ronald Reagan’s when he was first elected president, people in their late 60s do not make nine-year commitments lightly.”
Well, actually, no. Her calendar age will be the same as Reagan’s. But men - alas! - age faster than women. A quick glance at the mortality tables shows that a 69-year-old woman has the same annual mortality risk (1.49%) as a 64-year-old man. So in actuarial terms, Hilary Clinton in 2016 would be the age, not of Ronald Reagan in 1980, but of Mitt Romney in 2012. (Actually, adjusted for gender, she’d be a year younger than Romney was.) Did you hear anyone argue that Mitt was too old to be President? Me neither.
Of course age is a factor; other things equal, you’d rather have a younger president, because the job itself is so punishing. But let’s keep the relevant facts straight.
JamesWimberley says
"… a 69-year-old woman has the same annual morality risk (1.49%) as a 64-year-old man.". Nah. Women have much high morality risks at any age. Killjoys.
Mark Kleiman says
Good catch! Fixed.
Keith_Humphreys says
The press is in general too gentle with age questions — I wrote this not long before "spunky" Lautenberg died. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square…
bighorn50 says
Mittens was too a lot of things (like clueless, ethically challenged, lacking in empathy, _______ ) to be President. His age was the least of the bunch.
SamChevre says
I'm not qualified on LTC, but I'm fairly familiar with LTC underwriting and risk (I'm a life actuary; I used to work for a firm for whom LTC was an important product, but never worked on it.)
Mortality risk and what I'll call "reduced brain function risk" aren't very closely connected. (Basically, protective factors for living longer have little effect on dementia-the extreme form of reduced brain function-incidence.) Any history of neurological problems (seizures, tremors, TIAs) really increases the risk of future reduced brain function; traditional cardiovascular risks don't affect dementia risk very much.
In short, I think mortality is the wrong risk to look at with older candidates for office.
JamesWimberley says
At our age, isn't the variance higher so that individual characteristics and history dominate the averages? Going by this website calculator, which works in a variety of risk and prophylactic factors, my life expectancy is over 90. HRC will presumably release a medical report.
Her choice of VP candidate will become more important. The risk of her choosing someone as unfitted for the Presidency as Sarah Palin or Spiro Agnew is nil, but the candidate should still be scrutinised for the part.
paul says
Potential democratic candidates segue directly from “too young and inexperienced” to “too old and worn out” without any intervening period of suitability for office.