The most important vice presidential election of our lifetime
Byron York
THE MOST IMPORTANT VICE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIME. It is commonplace on the campaign trail to hear a presidential candidate declare that the current campaign is “the most important election of our lifetime.” That is usually not the case. Many of them end up being not terribly consequential at all.
But now that President Joe Biden has declared his candidacy for reelection, it is possible to call the 2024 race the most important vice presidential election of our lifetime. Why? Because the president will be 82 years old. That fact alone places the spotlight on the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, current Vice President Kamala Harris.
If he is reelected, Biden will take the oath of office at an age five years older than Ronald Reagan was when Reagan, previously the nation’s oldest president, left the White House at age 77. And Reagan’s second term was filled with open speculation in the media that he was losing his cognitive abilities. A famous New Republic headline from 1987 asked simply: “Is Reagan Senile?”
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With the exception of the last few weeks of Dwight Eisenhower’s second term, no other president had ever turned 70 in the White House. Reagan’s serving to 77 was pushing it. And now we have Biden planning to run for reelection at 82 and, if he wins, to serve until 86. That’s really pushing it.
Anyone watching Biden today has to have concerns about his age. The president often seems confused or slow on the uptake. His trademark gaffes sometimes move into non sequitur territory. And when his doctors say that “the president’s gait remains stiff,” they apparently mean he has developed the kind of slow, shuffling walk millions of younger Americans associate with their elderly relatives.
It is entirely reasonable for a voter to worry about what shape the president might be in five years from now, when he would still be serving his second term. And so a number of polls show voters concerned about just that. A recent Yahoo News-YouGov poll found that 68% of registered voters say Biden is “too old for another term.” That number includes 48% of the voters in Biden’s own party.
Still, Biden pushes forward with another campaign. And he might win. His reelection announcement video framed the race as the courageous, humane Biden against MAGA extremism — an approach that worked well for Democrats in 2020 and in 2022. Faced with a one-or-the-other choice of Biden or former President Donald Trump, who will also be too old to be president, by the way, voters might well hold their noses and reelect Biden. Voters have held their noses many times in the past and picked what they thought was the less unappealing of two candidates.
And Biden’s age might finally lead to a reform of the system. “We have term limits for president thanks to FDR, which have been great,” the Georgetown University constitutional scholar Randy Barnett tweeted recently. “We now need an age limit.” Indeed, the Constitution sets a lower age limit for president — no one may serve under the age of 35 — but sets no upper age limit. Perhaps at some time after Biden, an amendment might finally succeed.
Or maybe it won’t. In any event, there is no such limit in effect now, which is where Harris comes in. Just as no president has ever served at anywhere near the age Biden would be in a second term, no vice president has ever served under a president of such advanced age. Actuarial life tables published by the Social Security Administration confirm the obvious: An 84-year-old man, to pick the age Biden would be midway through a second term, has a significantly greater statistical chance of dying within one year than a 60-year-old man or a 50-year-old man.
That’s what a vice president is for. The job has no real obligations other than to be ready to step in should the president die or become disabled in office. Yes, in 2024, voters will face a serious choice in whether to reelect Biden, but a second, at least as serious choice is whether to reelect Harris. The problem is pretty simple: Harris has not done a good job. She has been extremely unimpressive in office. “Harris’ [job approval] numbers are even worse than President Biden’s (approval in the high 30s v. low 40s),” reported Axios. “Officials believe that could make her a drag on the ticket.” Many voters would find it disconcerting at best, and downright scary at worst, to wake up and discover she is president of the United States. That’s why 2024 could be the most important vice presidential election of our lifetime.
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