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Contenders for President
Posted by Mark 25 August 2007
So Senator John McCain will be 71 on Wednesday. While the election is still a long way off, if he won he would be the oldest first-term President in American history.
But it isn't going to happen. The current record-holder is President Ronald Reagan who was 69 when he first took office, and 73 on re-election. The other leading contenders range from Barack Obama in his 40s, through Hillary Clinton, 50s and Rudolph Guiliani in his early 60s.
The central issue that will decide the outcome of the election has not emerged and will not for perhaps a year yet, but it is not going to be the age and experience of the candidate. Not in the way McCain would like it to be anyway. America will still be tormented by Iraq next November and by then Americans will want someone to give them some hope for what will have become, I am sure, a desperate and hopeless outlook. Domestic troubles will also have piled up for the Republicans as President George W Bush flails around for his legacy only to find it is one of ineptitude. He will push America to the Democrats unless they, as they have so often in the past, shoot themselves in the foot again.
The climate will be right for another Kennedy. He had youth on his side and his clan represented American "royalty". He was exactly what America needed at the time and he was inspired and inspiring. Who among the Democrats can possibly match that? The problem for them is that while Obama has the youth, Hillary Rodham Clinton wears the crown of America's royal family. They could be the dream ticket, but which way round? Will it be the first black President or the first female President?
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