9/5/2023 0 Comments Up down stairs![]() ![]() An iconic image of the modern presidency is the chief executive walking up the stairs to a majestic Air Force One, then turning at the doorway and waving. In a preview of what voters will see more of if Biden wins re-election and serves into his mid-80s, the White House seems to be making concessions to his age. “When you take stock of the unprecedented results President Biden’s experienced leadership has delivered ever since Republican officials began crying about his age in early 2019, it’s hard not to conclude that their whining is anything but a good luck charm,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman. ![]() They are arguing that Republicans are merely recycling an argument that the now 77-year-old Donald Trump made during the 2020 presidential race and fell flat with voters and they’re noting that Biden’s decades of experience have allowed him to score legislative victories that eluded younger predecessors such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. We don’t have anyone that age.”īiden’s advisers appear to be taking steps to minimize the job’s physical toll while simultaneously ramping up a twofold strategy to parlay an electoral weakness into a strength. “That is really old by European standards. People worry about his physical frailty and running from age 82 to 86” - the age Biden would be at the end of a second term. “He doesn’t have the stamina levels of an Obama or a younger president. “Physically, he’s quite frail and he falls off his bicycle, or whatever,” said a former Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk more freely. Biden aides aren’t promising that he won’t stumble again. The challenge gets trickier by the day as the oldest president in history embarks on one last race against a Republican Party eager to pounce on every miscue.Īny misstep is bound to be magnified when voters are already prone to believe Biden should consider retirement. People are like, ‘Oh, this is so bad.’”įaced with life’s unbending reality - no one gets any younger - Biden’s advisers have been trying to blunt concerns about his age since his 2020 campaign. “The number of text messages that I got after the president fell … I mean, my phone was blowing up. “The Democratic Party needs to be responsive to what people are saying about Biden and their concerns that they have with his age,” said one congressional Democrat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely about the president’s fitness. He has confused Iraq with Ukraine and Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with “Rolling Stone.” At a conference last year, he looked out at the audience and called for a congresswoman who had recently died in a car crash. His gait is less steady, his speech not as fluid. Apart from being the most taxing job on the world stage, the presidency is also the most public, and signs of advancing age are tough to miss.Īpparent to anyone paying attention is that the Biden they may remember from the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings of 1987, or the vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin in 2008, is a different man today. ![]() Biden’s answer to voters who question whether he’s up to the rigors of a second term is simple: “Watch me.” The trouble is, voters are watching, and what they’re seeing is hardening impressions that it’s time for him to step aside, polling shows. ![]()
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