Democratic front-runners confront concerns about their age – The Media Hq

By Steve Peoples and Alexandra Jaffe | Associated Press

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa – Bernie Sanders insists he feels better than ever less than a month after heart surgery, but his return to the campaign trail this week sparked new questions about the unusual age of the Democratic Party’s leading presidential candidates in 2020.

Both Sanders, 78, and Joe Biden, 76, suggest that their age is not a big issue, but voters, especially older voters, are not so sure.

Gordon Lundberg, a 71-year-old retired Lutheran pastor from Ames, said the candidates’ health is a key issue for him because he understands what it feels like to age. He leans toward the tendon. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts because even though she is 70, “she is the most liberal and she has yet to get a foot in the grave.”

“Bernie is just too darn old. And so is Biden, “Lundberg said. “They look old, they sound old, they are old. They fall in the shower and they get heart attacks! “

Lundberg is not alone.

Polling has suggested that a significant number of Americans believe a candidate in his or her late 70s is too old to be president. If elected, Sanders would join when they have already exceeded the average U.S. life expectancy of 78.6 years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention & # 39; s National Center for Health Statistics. The bite would be just a few months away.

Warren would be the oldest new president in history and eclipse Trump, who himself eclipsed Ronald Reagan. Biden and Sanders would be older on their first day in office than Reagan, a two-term president, was on his last.

While Biden, the former vice president, has often laughed at questions about his age, it’s a question Sanders has been forced to confront more directly when he returned to Iowa this week. Sanders, a Vermont senator, travels with his wife and campaign manager, whose responsibilities include ensuring he takes modest precautions not to exaggerate, taking daily walks for at least half an hour without phone calls, and sticking to a healthier diet.

“He will run,” said Campaign Manager Faiz Shakir, who said he would likely accompany Sanders on the campaign trail for the next month. “Our job is to make sure he knows he’s in a marathon, not a sprint.”

Sanders opened up about his health during an interview at a coffee shop in Des Moines, one of several he conducted this week as he works to convince first-state voters in the presidential primary calendar of 2020 that he is physically capable of beating President Donald Trump next fall and assuming presidency demands.

Sanders told the Associated Press that he looks forward to “a 100 percent recovery – full recovery.”

“Now I have three good arteries,” he said. “And three good arteries are better than two good arteries. So I’m fine. “

At a subsequent campaign shooting in Marshalltown, he confronted the age issue directly without being asked.

“I have been criticized for being old. I claim guilt. I’m old, ”Sanders said, sparking with laughter and applause in the audience.

And at a Friday event in Newton, Iowa, he insisted that his advanced age offered some benefits. Specifically, people have had decades to study him and his policies. He has, for example. Supported Medicare for All for three decades.

“Having a long record gives people the understanding that these ideas that I’m talking about are in my gut, they’re in my heart,” he accused. “This is who I am as a human being.”

Many in the audience welcome the message. But after the Marshalltown event, not everyone cheered.

Retired Marshalltown resident Ed Canade, 72, described himself as “somewhat concerned” about Sanders’ age.

“I know as I get older, everything is not as sharp. That’s the age. I can feel it in my own body, ”said Canada. “I think Bernie is doing well for his age.”

Meanwhile, Biden called his age “a legitimate question” in an interview days after attending the April presidential race, saying it’s up to voters to “see me” and decide for themselves.

Since then, Biden has not been forced to confront the age issue as often as Sanders, despite frequent gaffes on the campaign trail. The former vice president has often seemed to mix up dates, offer outdated pop culture references and forget his words.

He promised earlier this month to release his health records to help demonstrate his physical readiness for the nation’s top job.

While national polls suggest that Biden is doing well among older voters, on the ground in the state that will hold the country’s first presidential primary contest, Democrats see age as a matter for Biden and Sanders.

Kathy Judge, a 58-year-old Nurse from Ames, went so far as to call Sanders and Biden “very self-centered and very selfish about being in the race” when she said there are questions about whether they are “physically capable of to finish the race.

As an older person herself, she said, she sees their ages carry on them.

“Bernie Sanders has already had a heart attack! Joe Biden can’t remember what day it is! Now I can’t admit it for a few days, but we need someone who is sharp and thinking on their feet and not fumbling, “said Judge supporting 50-year-old Cory Booker, the new Jersey senator.

At a Biden event this summer in Manning, Donna Forman, a 72-year-old retiree, said the former vice president is in her top three, along with Booker and 59-year-old Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. But the one major concern she has about Biden is his age.

“Because I know people who are old – including myself,” she said. “I’ll be there. And I think Donald Trump is a perfect example of why no one over 70 should run for anything. “

AP writer Bill Barrow contributed to this report.