The Obama-McCain age gap that matters
Many years separate the two candidates, but it's not a gap you can measure with an EKG.
By Ezra Klein
LA Times
June 1, 2008
Call me squeamish, but I really wish I didn't know that John McCain recently suffered from an enlarged prostate. That, however, was merely one of the many bits of health trivia that emerged after the McCain campaign opened hundreds of pages of the candidate's medical records to a few select members of the media.
The reporters were given a few hours to take notes -- but no photocopies -- so they could assure the voters of McCain's health and vigor. The next morning, bleary-eyed Americans opened their papers and learned about everything from McCain's melanomas to his trouble with cholesterol. The takeaway was that McCain is plenty healthy to serve, but it was a rather undignified way to find that out.
Barack Obama and McCain are separated by the largest age difference of any two presidential candidates in history. If Obama is elected, he will be, at 47, among the youngest presidents in history; if McCain wins, he'll be the oldest to win the office, at 72.
Many see the 25-year age gap as McCain's greatest vulnerability. It's what Obama is not so subtly reminding you of when he calls this election a choice between "the past and the future." It's why there's a website called ThingsYoungerThanJohnMcCain.com (among the entries are Mt. Rushmore, the polio vaccine, chocolate chip cookies, Cobb salad and the ballpoint pen). It also explains why the McCain campaign hosted that viewing of McCain's medical records: How better to answer questions about his age than by allaying fears about his health?
(Continued here.)
By Ezra Klein
LA Times
June 1, 2008
Call me squeamish, but I really wish I didn't know that John McCain recently suffered from an enlarged prostate. That, however, was merely one of the many bits of health trivia that emerged after the McCain campaign opened hundreds of pages of the candidate's medical records to a few select members of the media.
The reporters were given a few hours to take notes -- but no photocopies -- so they could assure the voters of McCain's health and vigor. The next morning, bleary-eyed Americans opened their papers and learned about everything from McCain's melanomas to his trouble with cholesterol. The takeaway was that McCain is plenty healthy to serve, but it was a rather undignified way to find that out.
Barack Obama and McCain are separated by the largest age difference of any two presidential candidates in history. If Obama is elected, he will be, at 47, among the youngest presidents in history; if McCain wins, he'll be the oldest to win the office, at 72.
Many see the 25-year age gap as McCain's greatest vulnerability. It's what Obama is not so subtly reminding you of when he calls this election a choice between "the past and the future." It's why there's a website called ThingsYoungerThanJohnMcCain.com (among the entries are Mt. Rushmore, the polio vaccine, chocolate chip cookies, Cobb salad and the ballpoint pen). It also explains why the McCain campaign hosted that viewing of McCain's medical records: How better to answer questions about his age than by allaying fears about his health?
(Continued here.)
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