If you seek “diversity,” which after all is supposed to be our strength, look elsewhere:
Why are the Democrats running for president so old? Blame the Clintons. There are five Democrats who have either declared or are thinking about running for president. Three — Joe Biden, Bernard Sanders, and Jim Webb — will be over 70 years old on Inauguration Day 2017. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton will be nine months short of 70. Only Martin O’Malley, who will turn 54 a couple of days before the 2017 swearing-in, has not reached retirement age already.
What accounts for the Democrats’ dramatic change from the party of youth to the party of age?
“It’s the snuffing out of young talent by the strength and size and sheer velocity of the inevitable nominee,” says a well-connected Democratic strategist. “The Clintons took all the air out of the collective Democratic room. There are a lot of people who would be running who are much younger, but they’ve got their future in front of them, and they don’t want the Clintons to ruin it, in this campaign or after this campaign. So they’re waiting for a moment when there is enough oxygen to run.”
The elderly field is dismaying for some Democrats, but not overwhelmingly so. They believe, rightly, that if a Republican wins in 2016, then everything Barack Obama has accomplished in eight years will be endangered. To protect those achievements — most notably, national health care — a Democrat must keep the White House. If that is Hillary Clinton, fine.
So… how’s that Hillary! campaign working out for you, Dems?
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