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> But old age runs deep in modern presidential politics. Does it really though? Not according to Wikipedia, which puts the median age of a president at 55 year
by smcphile 7y ago
> But old age runs deep in modern presidential politics.
Does it really though? Not according to Wikipedia, which puts the median age of a president at 55 years and 3 months, and which describes the distribution of ages as conforming to a bell curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...
- greenyoda 7y agoYou only need to go back to the three presidents before Trump to find three younger presidents in a row: Obama: 47 (age at inauguration) George W. Bush: 54 Bill Clinton: 46 The author of this article has a very short memory.
- pmiller2 7y agoWhat’s the median age of presidents at election since 1968?
- smcphile 7y agoIf we start with Johnson, the average of the ages of Johnson and Nixon, so somewhere between 55 and 56: Clinton 46 years 154 days Obama 47 years 169 days Carter 52 years 111 days Bush Jr 54 years 198 days Johnson 55 years 87 days Nixon 56 years 11 days Ford 61 years 26 days Bush Sr 64 years 222 days Reagan 69 years 349 days Trump 70 years 220 days Edit: formatting of table
- pmiller2 7y ago5 of those presidents were elected twice, and one wasn’t elected at all.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoFor the non-Americans or those just not up on Presidential history: Ford was the one who never got elected. Nixon's VP -- who ran with Nixon and got elected in '72 -- was Sprio Agnew, who later resigned due to corruption allegations. Ford replaced Agnew, and then replaced Nixon when he got nailed by Watergate. Brilliant maneuvering? Or falling bass-ackwards into the Oval Office?
- smcphile 7y agoYes, so using that method and excluding Gerald Ford it would be the age of George W. Bush when he was re-elected, so about 59 years old. Clinton 46 years 154 days Clinton second term Obama 47 years 169 days Obama second term Carter 52 years 111 days Bush Jr 54 years 198 days Bush Jr second term Johnson 55 years 87 days Johnson second term Nixon 56 years 11 days Nixon second term Bush Sr 64 years 222 days Reagan 69 years 349 days Reagan second term Trump 70 years 220 days Nevertheless, I wouldn't use the term "old age" regarding any of these presidents, with the exceptions of Reagan and Trump. Here's my point. The author of the article wrote: "One possibility is that it’s mere randomness. It’s only one election that’s been roiled by Trump, you might think, and younger blood is waiting in the wings." I believe this is the mostly the correct answer. No, it has nothing to do with Trump, but, yes, it is just randomness. Younger blood will come again the future, as it has in the past. I'm not convinced by any of the proposed arguments to try to prove the opposite. Just one example, "Older politicians have had longer to build up donor networks, and older rich people may be more likely to take the risk of self-funding. If Jeff Bezos had quit Amazon to run for president this year, he would have given up years of peak earning and peak productivity in the private sector." Sure, that's true, but that didn't stop, for example, Clinton or Obama from getting elected long before they were old, because there are many other factors at play other than those mentioned above by the writer. Briefly, there's no way to know now who will be the candidates in the 2024 American election and how old they'll be. Edit: Typo 2024, not 2026
- smcphile 7y agoMy bad, 2028, not 2024 or 2026.
- smcphile 7y agoI messed up in the above message when calculating the median: Clinton 46 years 154 days Obama 47 years 169 days Clinton second term Obama second term Carter 52 years 111 days Bush Jr 54 years 198 days Johnson 55 years 87 days Nixon 56 years 11 days Bush Jr 58 years 198 days Johnson second term Nixon second term Bush Sr 64 years 222 days Reagan 69 years 349 days Trump 70 years 220 days Reagan second term The median is the age of Johnson, 1st term, 55 years 87 days
- pmiller2 7y agoConsidering how the median age of the country at large is 38.2, you just proved the opposite of your intended point. [0] —- [0]: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/median-age-does-not-tell-the-whole-story.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/median-age-do...
- smcphile 7y agoNo, there’s no doubt in my mind that the median age of a president is greater than the median age of the general population, but that in no way implies that old age “runs deep” among presidents, which I take to mean that it’s a common thing. About half are less than 55 and half are more than 55. Most are somewhere near 55 (since the distribution conforms to a bell curve). 55, in my opinion, is not “old age”, but your mileage may vary.
- Izkata 7y agoExtra context: a 55-year-old who gets elected for president twice would finish at 63, about 3-4 years short of retirement age (66-67 depending on birth year).
- im3w1l 7y agoAs the minimum age to become president is 35, you should exclude people under 35 from the statistics. I can believe that 55 is close to the median age of people 35 and older.
- harlanw 7y agoThe population of the U.S. has grown considerably since 1985. The median age of the entire population does not seem like a good metric. What's the median age of people qualified to run for president today? It appears to be 50-60.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]