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The biggest reason that many Democratic officials are nervous about President Biden’s age is not his ability to do the job in a second term.
Amazingly, the American government can function without a healthy president. The US was on its way to victory in World War II when Franklin Roosevelt was ill in 1944 and 1945. Forty years later, the government was managing its disastrous relationship with the Soviet Union as Ronald Reagan’s mental capacity declined. In each case, White House aides, Cabinet secretaries and military leaders performed well even when no leaders were involved.
The issue that worries many Democrats more than Biden’s ability to run for a second term is whether his age will prevent him win the second term. If enough voters are turned off by the idea of a president who will turn 86 in office, Republicans can win full control of the federal government in 2024 – and Donald Trump can return to the White House.
I know that Democrats worry less about partisan politics than the mental acuity of the most powerful people in the country. But it is not entirely irrational. Today, I’ll take a look at the biggest questions about Biden’s re-election campaign — which he officially announced yesterday — and how he might address them.
The gaffe machine
At 80, Biden may be a volatile public player. He sometimes uses the wrong word or fails to pronounce a name. Some of these habits are not new, of course. Biden has a stutter, which can make it seem like he can’t remember the words, even if he struggles to say them. He has also been known for a long time to say things that he probably shouldn’t.
“Biden lives on with a gaffe-prone reputation,” read a Times headline in 2008, when he was just 65. That same year, Slate magazine wrote, “He’s often misspoken, hardly newsworthy — and hardly damaging.”
But aging seems to exacerbate the problem. In the upcoming campaign, you can imagine that a verbal misstep could cause some swing voters to wonder whether Biden will seek a second term.
That concern helps explain why polls show that roughly three-quarters of Democratic voters approve of Biden’s performance but slightly less than half want him to run for a second term.
Of course, there will be an easy way for Biden to solve this problem: He can spend more time speaking in public now and show his strength. Instead, he and his assistant chose the opposite approach.
A quiet strategy
Biden has held fewer news conferences each year than any president since Reagan. Biden gave fewer interviews in his first two years as president than any other president:
Michael Shear, White House correspondent for The Times, said Biden aides were unapologetic about avoiding interviews and news conferences. “They see these traditions as outdated and unimportant,” Michael said. “They say that traditional media has no influence, and they think that there are many other ways that they can present themselves.”
But Biden has not replaced the media conversation with other ways to engage the public. They don’t hold town hall meetings, for example. And the interview statistics in the chart above include Biden’s recent conversations with people other than journalists, such as Drew Barrymore and Jason Bateman, both actors, and Manny MUA, a YouTube beauty expert.
Biden’s strategy of minimizing his unscripted public appearances suggests that his staff believes that the risk is often not rewarded.
‘watch me’
Biden and his aides say his age is a legitimate issue for debate, but he has shown he can do the job. “The only thing I can say is, ‘Look at me,'” Biden likes to say.
There is certainly reason to think that Biden is ready for both the substantive and performative parts. He was clearly visible during this year’s State of the Union address, trading verbal volleys with congressional Republicans — and winning the exchange. I have spoken with Biden several times since he was elected and found him to be sharp, able to discuss policy and politics in the same discursive style as in previous years.
They also had successful presidents by many measures. He passed a blizzard of legislation, including more bipartisan bills than expected, and managed the pandemic and the pro-Ukraine Western alliance. Democrats did better in the midterms than in the first term of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. As I’ve written before, Biden – unlike other top Democrats, who have drifted to the left of most voters – seems to know where public opinion lies: left on economic issues, more moderate on many social issues.
I can imagine a scenario where age worries prove overblown. Maybe voters care less about Biden’s age than political pundits and will re-elect him for the same reason they voted for him: He gives off an aura of moderation and competence when many parts of the American political system don’t. His adversaries, whether Trump (who is 76 years old) or anyone else, seem to be making the Republican Party shift toward extremism.
“The guy has done a great job,” Elaine Kamarck, a political scientist and Democratic Party official said recently on The Run-Up, the Times’ political podcast. “So everybody said, ‘Okay, yeah, he’s old. Big.’ There are advantages that come with age, as well as disadvantages.
The question remains: If Biden is as energetic and effective as aides say he is, why does he have so little time to engage publicly with others?
Wonder place
Generations of children have visited Natural History Museums to see dinosaurs, stars, or the great blue whale suspended from the ceiling. Now the museum is opening a new wing, made of curved concrete and evoking the canyons of the American West.
This wing houses the insectarium and butterfly conservatory, classrooms, laboratories and more. Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic of The Times, predicted it would become an instant classic. “For the useful part of the user base, the part that hasn’t finished high school,” he wrote, “I expect, like the rest of the museum, to be amazing.”
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
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