Too old for the Oval Office

Democratic primary race has raised questions of an age limit for presidents

Eric Boose / Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was hospitalized on Oct. 1, and suspended all campaign appearances while he recovers from a procedure to correct blocked arteries following a heart attack, according to The New York Times. 

At 78-years-old, Sanders is the oldest candidate in the 2020 election, but fellow Democratic frontrunners Joe Biden (76) and Elizabeth Warren (70) are both in their 70s, as is their likely opponent, Donald Trump (73). With so many 70-year-olds hoping to sit in the Oval Office, the issue of age has become more prominent in this election than any in recent memory.

Former Vice President Biden has already shown his age in the early Democratic debates. In July, a New York Times article characterized him as “slow off the mark,” and “uncertain how to counterpunch.” The article notes that members of Biden’s staff were concerned that he may not be “nimble enough” to handle the campaign trail, let alone the presidency. Essentially, Biden’s age and lackluster debate performances have raised questions of his mental fitness, and whether a 76-year-old is still sharp enough to handle one of the toughest jobs in the world.

While questions about the mental fitness of candidates have lurked in the background of the Democratic primary race since July, Sanders’s hospitalization has raised questions about those same candidates’ physical fitness. In 2017, the average life expectancy for white men in the United States was 76.4 years according to The New York Times. Both Sanders and Biden would take the oath of office on the plus side of that number. On the other side of the ticket, questions about Trump’s physical fitness are nothing new, considering the president’s publicly stated aversion to exercise. Trump would be 74 at inauguration if he were to win a second term.

As Sanders and Biden have shown their age, the question of imposing an upper age limit on presidential candidates has been thrust into the debate surrounding the 2020 campaign. President Jimmy Carter, speaking only weeks before his 95th birthday, publicly endorsed the idea of an age limit. 

“I hope there’s an age limit,” Carter said. “If I were just 80-years-old, if I was 15 years younger, I don’t believe I could undertake the duties I experienced when I was president.”

Some of Carter’s concerns were proven fair by President Ronald Reagan, who left office at 77 years of age. In 2011, The Wall Street Journal’s White House correspondent revealed that some of Reagan’s aides considered invoking the 25th Amendment — allowing the Vice President to take over in the case of presidential incapacity — due to the deterioration of Reagan’s mental state. Five years after he left office, Reagan was found to have Alzheimer’s disease.

While Carter’s concerns are those of fitness, especially mental sharpness and flexibility, there is another argument in favor of a presidential age limit. As The Atlantic’s Andrew Ferguson writes, the nation, and the Democratic party especially, is a gerontocracy — basically, a government by old people. The average age of Democratic House leadership is 72-years-old. For context, only 11 percent of the American population is 70 or older. However, Ferguson’s objection is not to old people, per say, but to those who “insist on turning the peak of their career into a plateau.” For Ferguson, an age limit is necessary to maintain creative energy in the political system by injecting young blood with more up-to-date views and approaches to governing.

If we are to oblige Carter and Ferguson and establish an age limit, the next step is to decide when someone is too old to run for president. For context, Ronald Reagan was the oldest president ever, leaving office at age 77. Trump holds the record for oldest president at the time of their first inauguration, at 70 years old. Everyone will have their own number in mind, with their own reasoning. One of those numbers is 65, as suggested by Caitlin Schnieder, of the progressive website Splinter. 

Now, you may look at 65 and think it is a perfectly reasonable age limit, or you may look at 65 and ask, why 65? If it seems like a completely arbitrary age, it is. This is one of the chief issues with trying to set an age limit. Inevitably, the limit will either be too high to have any real effect — an age like 75 — or low enough that it will eliminate an exceptionally fit elder statesman. 

Instead of looking at a candidate’s age, the solution should be to test their fitness, mental and physical. A presidential candidate should be able to demonstrate that they can handle the mental and physical burdens that they will face if elected. If they are unable to do so, they should perhaps consider a different line of work.

Until his recent hospitalization, Bernie Sanders was by all accounts more fit than the average 78-year-old. Reagan, despite being the oldest man to ever hold the office, is hailed by conservatives as one of the best presidents in history. Nelson Mandela was in his 70s during his time as President of South Africa, and Winston Churchill led Britain through World War II in his 70s. 

When weighing the possibility of an upper age limit, it is helpful to consider the logic behind the lower age limit. The authors of the Constitution favored older, more experienced gentlemen for positions of power. The value of life experience is the reasoning behind age minimums for both the Senate and the president. Wanting the Senate to be the more dignified of the two chambers of Congress, the framers made the minimum age for Senators 30, five more than that for Representatives. Likewise, the minimum age for president was set at 35 to guarantee the election of someone with enough experience to govern effectively. 

Essentially, an arbitrary age limit does not actually solve the problem at hand. The concern about Biden and Sanders is not their age, but their mental and physical fitness, respectively. This concern is not only valid, but worth addressing. The presidency is one of the most mentally taxing, if not physically taxing, jobs in the world, and as President Carter said, it is not guaranteed that someone nearing their 80s could handle those demands.

There is one complication with requiring presidential candidates to undergo mental and physical evaluation. It is, in fact, a complication with changing any of the requirements for presidential candidates. The rules about who can be president are established by the Constitution, which is a difficult document to change quickly. In order to amend the Constitution, an amendment must first be proposed, which most commonly occurs via an act of Congress. If the proposed amendment is approved by two-thirds of both the House and the Senate, it must then be ratified by 38 of the 50 state governments. The last amendment to reach the ratification stage was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which explicitly states that civil rights cannot be denied on the basis of sex. The ERA was submitted to the states for ratification in 1972. At this point in time, it has been ratified by 32 states. 47 years after its introduction, the ERA is still not a part of the Constitution.

It should be clear, just because amendment is a long and uncertain process does not mean that an amendment requiring presidential candidates to demonstrate their physical and mental fitness to hold office should not at least be considered. However, it does mean that it will be some time before such fitness tests are required by law.

In that time, the question of whether a candidate is fit enough to hold the office will be answered by the voters. In this election, more voters seem to be doing so than in years before. As concerns about the fitness of certain candidates abound, the candidates in question would be smart to have a physical and mental examination, and to disclose the results to voters.

In essence, elections are long and intensive job applications, where the voters ultimately choose which candidate to hire. With that in mind, why would we elect someone who does not have the mental faculty or the physical stamina to do the job well?