(Yahoo! News)
Michael Mathes March 18, 2019
Washington - With a septuagenarian president preparing his re-election bid, and two likely main challengers in their late seventies by 2020, Americans are facing an inevitable question: does age matter in White House politics?
Donald Trump, the oldest person ever elected US president, will be 74 on Inauguration Day 2021.
Two likely contenders for the Democratic nomination who lead early polls, Senator Bernie Sanders and former vice president Joe Biden, will be 79 and 78, respectively. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts progressive also in the race, will be 71.
Democrats already sport several far younger White House hopefuls: Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg are 37, Julian Castro is 44 and Senator Cory Booker is 49.
History would suggest they have a better shot at victory than members of the gerontocracy. The last time Americans elected a Democrat older than 55 to the White House was Harry Truman in 1948.
As Americans mull the prospect of a president turning 80 in his first term, two images from recent days stand out.
Candidate Beto O'Rourke, 46, drew attention to his own comparative youth, running a five-kilometer (three-mile) race at a brisk clip Saturday in Iowa, while Bernie Sanders, 31 years his senior, slipped in the shower and sustained a gash on his head that required seven stitches.
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