DETROIT – As we head into next year’s presidential race (a contest that’s really been under way for months), we know two things: First, polls show a large majority of Americans don’t want either President Biden or Donald Trump to run.
And second, a Biden-Trump return match seems more and more likely. Nobody of any stature in the Democratic Party is going to challenge an incumbent president seeking reelection.
No president who has sought a second term has been denied his party’s nomination since the 1850s, and it’s not happening now, even though there are plenty of Democrats who are concerned about the president’s age. That doesn’t mean they think he is senile; they don’t, and everything indicates he isn’t.
They do worry, however, what he will be like at 86, after five more years of perhaps the highest-pressure job in the world.
Ten years ago, when U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, announced he wasn’t running for re-election, I told him I was surprised. Levin, the powerful head of the Senate Committee on the Armed Services was 80, but looked and acted like a much younger man. He was so popular that the Republicans had offered only token opposition the last two times he had run.
When I saw him at an event that fall, I asked “Why are you retiring? You could go to the Bahamas for the campaign and still get reelected.” He laughed and said, “Yeah, I feel great now, but I don’t know what I will feel like at 86.” Tragically, when he did reach that age, he was battling the lung cancer that would kill him.
On the Republican side, while there are certainly some who think Trump is unfit to be president, and more who think he can’t win, he still has vast support. And even if a majority would want someone else, there are an even dozen Republicans running for the highest office who are certain to split the anti-Trump vote.
Incidentally, while there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s age, it is worth noting that Donald Trump, at 78, would be the second oldest nominee in our history, and seems less physically fit.
So is that what we are facing? A contest few want, with the oldest president in history running against a man almost as old who is officially obese, known for bizarre behavior and facing multiple civil and criminal indictments?
Any of this would have seemed inconceivable ten years ago. Today, all that seems likely. But inevitable?
Maybe … and maybe not. Life, that non-political scientist John Lennon, once said, is what happens while people are making plans.
So here are some things to consider:
Sixty years ago today, nobody imagined Lyndon Johnson would be elected President the next year. President John F. Kennedy was nine years younger. Three years before, he had told his brother, who didn’t want LBJ on the ticket, not to worry. “I’m 43, Bobby, I’m not going to die.”
Not only did no one imagine a year before the 1944 election that Harry Truman would become President, few had ever heard of the Missouri senator. Not only does unexpected death sometimes dramatically change history, other things do too. Fifty years ago this summer, nobody, including Gerald Ford, ever thought Gerald Ford would be vice-president, let alone hold the top job, in less than a year.
A year later, a year before the 1976 Presidential election, 90 percent of Americans had never even heard of an obscure former Georgia governor, a peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter.
Turning to more recent times, I remember telling a friend from Chicago in 2007 that it was totally naïve to think that a freshman Senator who happened to be Black and had an African name had the ghost of a chance to be President.
Besides, even if he were as charismatic as my friend thought, everyone agreed 2008 would be Hillary Clinton’s year, and the party leaders had already agreed to her nomination.
After all, we political analysts understood these things. Naturally, he’s never let me forget I said that. So, while I don’t think former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has a snowball’s chance at the Republican Presidential nomination, I’m much more reluctant to say never, except as in “never say never.”
Finally, a note on the vice presidency. Kamala Harris, the first woman and first person of color in that job, has suffered from bad press and generally negative approval ratings throughout her time in office. But two things need to be said about that: First, being vice president is politically always difficult, since you are pretty much obliged to support the President’s agenda, and carry out only the assignments he gives you.
We really have no idea what kind of President Harris might be, and some of the least regarded past vice presidents, such as Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman rose to greatness.
But there’s something else you might want to consider: If I were forced to guess who the next President would be, I’d put money on Kamala Harris, and not just because of Joe Biden’s age.
Fifteen of the 49 vice presidents since the nation was founded later became President. Since 1952, most vice presidents were later at least nominated for President, and five have been elected.
Not bad odds, and Harris has another thing in her favor: Her age. She’s 58, which used to be thought of as about the proper age for a president. The bottom line: You never can tell.
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