There is growing expectation in Washington that, in coming weeks, President Joe Biden will announce that he will seek a second term in the White House.
It is only because of Biden’s age that there has ever been any doubt about whether he would run again. The president turned 80 on November 20; were he to serve another term he would be 86 when he left office in January 2029. Yet, health permitting, there is no reason not to expect him to do so.
US President Joe Biden waltzes into his 80s.Credit:FLOTUS twitter
Since the 22nd amendment to the US Constitution which imposes a two-term limit on the Presidency came into force in 1951, every incumbent American president has sought a second term. Six have been successful: Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, George W Bush and Obama. Four have failed: Ford, Carter, George H W Bush and Trump. Lyndon Johnson is difficult to classify: he was re-elected in 1964 having been in office for a year following the Kennedy assassination. Although ultimately he did not run again in 1968, he had every intention to do so, and only withdrew when he was pushed close to defeat in the New Hampshire primary. Kennedy himself made his fatal trip to Texas in November 1963 to lay the foundations for his re-election bid in 1964, which he would almost certainly have won.
Nevertheless, no incumbent has been as old as Biden. Will his age make the difference? Subject, always, to the caveat of his health, I doubt it. In Australia, we are accustomed to the idea that even long political careers end in their 60s (if not earlier). Not so in the United States.
Senator Strom Thurmond retired from the Senate after 48 years’ serviceCredit:Reuters
When considering whether Biden would see his age as an impediment, it is instructive to consider the institution which shaped him: the US Senate. It was designed by the framers of the Constitution to be a body of wise elders (hence the Constitution prescribes a minimum age limit of 30). The etymology of the very word “Senate” is the Latin “senex” (old man). When Americans say “elder statesmen”, they really mean it. It is not uncommon for senators to serve into their 80s, in some cases their 90s.
Among the senators elected in last year’s mid-terms was Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, commencing his eighth six-year term at the age of 89. (Grassley has served continuously in elected office, as a State legislator, Congressman and Senator since he was first elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1959.) Biden served in the Senate with Grassley for 28 years. His other former Senate colleagues included Orrin Hatch of Utah (who retired after 42 years at the age of 86), Ted Stevens of Alaska (who also served for 42 years until he reached 87), Daniel Inouye of Hawaii (who died in office in 2012 at the age of 88, a fortnight before his 50th anniversary), and Dianne Feinstein of California (incumbent, who turns 90 in June and has not ruled out running again in 2024). But the greatest of them all – at least in terms of longevity – was the legendary Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who died in June 2003 at the age of 100, having retired from the Senate only five months earlier after 48 years’ service. Thurmond began his public life in the South Carolina Senate in 1933; his continuous political service lasted one week short of 70 years.
Had Biden not been tapped by Obama in 2008 to be his running-mate, he would very likely still be the senior senator for Delaware – and, like those and others of his senatorial colleagues, he would no doubt be planning to continue. Biden’s long service as a senator is key to understanding his future plans, because we are all shaped by the institutions in which we have our careers. In Biden’s case, it is the Senate, where age confers status, longevity enhances power, and being an octogenarian is no problem at all.
Think Biden is too old to run for president again? No, he’s feeling sprightly
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22.01.2023
There is growing expectation in Washington that, in coming weeks, President Joe Biden will announce that he will seek a second term in the White House.
It is only because of Biden’s age that there has ever been any doubt about whether he would run again. The president turned 80 on November 20; were he to serve another term he would be 86 when he left office in January 2029. Yet, health permitting, there is no reason not to expect him to do so.
US President Joe Biden waltzes into his 80s.Credit:FLOTUS twitter
Since the 22nd amendment to the US Constitution which imposes a two-term limit on the Presidency came into force in 1951, every incumbent American president has sought a second term. Six have been successful: Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, George W Bush and Obama. Four have failed: Ford, Carter, George H W Bush and Trump. Lyndon Johnson is difficult to classify: he was re-elected in 1964 having been in office for a year following the Kennedy........
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