The Leading Democrats for 2016's Nomination Are Old As F**k and They're Not Getting Any Younger

Via Instapundit, Byron York urges the Non-Native-American Elizabeth Warren to run because "life is unpredictable."

Clinton will be 69 years old on inauguration day 2017, nearly the oldest president ever. She has had a few health scares. By all accounts, she left her previous four-year stint in government service exhausted. She might not run, and the Democrat in second place in the polls, Vice President Joe Biden — 74 on inauguration day — is too old to be president. Beyond them, Democrats have nobody — except Elizabeth Warren. . . . She will be 67 on Inauguration Day 2017. (Has any party ever fielded a group as old as Clinton, Biden and Warren?)

I think the aged Elizabeth Warren is probably running in a Plan B sort of way -- as an insurance policy, in case the elderly Hillary Clinton and ancient Joe Biden turns out to be too frail for a White House run.

I had a good chuckle over this National Journal piece attempting to defuse the Age Problem for the Progressive Cause.

The piece attempted to suggest Hillary Clinton's age upon her hypothetical inauguration -- 69, same as Reagan's at his inauguration -- was different than Reagan's age, because, Actuarial Life-Expectancy Tables.

As a general matter, when you're trying to argue someone isn't old, and your best argument consists of busting out the actuarial tables for the life expectancy of elderly people, you're probably doing more harm than good.

But here's the claim:

The age comparisons between Hillary Clinton and Ronald Reagan seem as natural as they are nonsensical.

Nonsensical? How is one 69 year old so different from another that it becomes "nonsensical" to compare them?

Yes, Hillary is a woman, and they have somewhat longer life expectancies than men-- a point this piece is going to rely on to the exclusion of all else.

But "nonsensical"?

Yes, were Clinton to win in 2016, she would take office at age 69—just as Reagan did in 1981. And yes, the comparison is often made when Clinton's critics and allies debate whether she has the health to serve out two presidential terms.

But it's a wildly misleading comparison, as the number that matters when assessing Clinton's health is not her age, but her life expectancy. And there is where the Clinton-Reagan comparison is revealed as a stretch.

A combination of federal data and a more nuanced approach to calculating Clinton's life expectancy—one that includes her gender, era, and other factors—projects the would-be president living to age 86. That means Clinton would live a full 17 years after taking office, more than enough time to serve out two terms.

Under the same criteria used to calculate Clinton's life expectancy, Reagan upon inauguration was projected to live to 81—12 projected years after taking the oath to Clinton's 17.

So a five year difference in life expectancy?

And based upon that, it was perfectly sensible for the Left to constantly invoke Reagan's age as a reason to not vote for him, but it's nonsensical to suggest the same with the venerable Clinton?

Incidentally, Hillary had a health scare a couple of years ago we continue to know very little about. Obviously, this hasn't been factored into this (and I use this term advisedly) analysis.

Moving past the Reagan comparison reveals a complicated picture for Clinton. In terms of total life expectancy, were she to win in 2016, Clinton would take office with the longest projected total life expectancy of any president in the modern area.

This is such an irrelevant, nonsensical sentence that I don't know what it's doing here. They're saying Hillary will have the longest life expectancy of any president before her... but not post-inauguration life expectancy, as this nonsensical bit of data doesn't consider when in her life she would become president.

So, yeah, she'll have a longer life expectancy than her husband... but her husband became president at 43, whereas the Methusala-esque HRC would become president at 69.

Big difference.

But in terms of life expectancy after inauguration, Clinton's projected remaining years after taking office are dwarfed by total projected years forecast for our most recent presidents on their opening inauguration days: Barack Obama (32 projected years), George W. Bush (24.5 projected years), and Bill Clinton (30 projected years).

The best Hillary Clinton comparisons of life expectancy are to Richard Nixon (19 projected years after taking office), Gerald Ford (16 projected years), and George H.W. Bush (16 projected years)—all three of whom managed to take office without having to contend with concerns about their age.

Before Clinton's name entered the conversation, the most recent candidate to face age questions was 2008's unsuccessful Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. Had he won, McCain would have taken office at 72 and was projected to live another 13 years—four fewer than Clinton.

And there was a great deal of Progressive Chatter about the possibility he would die in office or become too senile to carry out his duties -- these claims made in order to highlight the alleged hypothetical nightmare of President Sarah Palin.

Were those fears also "nonsensical"? These authors seem to be placing an awful lot of distinction in a basket that only holds four years' worth of difference between Hillary's and McCain's post-inaugural life expectancy.

Why, it's almost nonsensical -- almost as the writers were just Good Progressives using any claim at hand to knock down a troublesome meme that could threaten their preferred progressive candidate.

At the end of the article they admit that crucial information is missing from their analysis -- Hillary Clinton's actual health records.

And I'm sure we'll be receiving those.

She's so open about every other aspect of her life.

Elizabeth Warren (67) for President

Because it's time to give Youth a chance.

posted by Ace at 05:06 PM

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