President Joe Biden, who at 80 has had to confront questions about his age and mental acuity as he is poised to launch a reelection campaign for president, once ran a campaign that sharply attacked his opponent’s age.
In 1972, Biden, then 29 years old and a local Delaware councilman, was running against incumbent Republican Sen. Cale Boggs who was 63 years old, a former two term governor and the state’s senior senator.
“Cale doesn’t want to run, he’s lost that old twinkle in his eye he used to have,” Biden said of Boggs, who had originally wanted to retire but was persuaded to run for reelection.
Biden used his opponent’s age against him in a way that was so explicit, one local reporter dubbed his approach, “Dear old dad.”
Biden was running to become one of the youngest people ever elected to the United States Senate. Now, the president is already the oldest person ever to serve in the office of the presidency, and, if reelected, would leave office at the age of 86. That would best the next oldest president by more than 9 years if he served a full second term.
The president’s age has been “omnipresent” in nearly every conversation, CNN reported in February, though that notion was disputed by a White House spokesperson.
In response to a request for comment, White House spokesman Andrew Bates told CNN that Biden has made “historic progress” that has been “enthusiastically welcomed by younger Americans – including his unprecedented investments in fighting climate change, his first-of-its kind police reform executive order, his actions to support community policing and decriminalize marijuana, and getting more Americans health coverage than ever before.”
In 1972, advertisements for Biden in local newspapers and on the radio hammered home a line, “he understands what’s happening today.”…
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