By Stephen Macaulay
Here’s something for your July 4th distraction, a list of the presidents of the United States and their ages when they left office:
1. George Washington (65 years, 10 days)
2. John Adams (65 years, 125 days)
3. Thomas Jefferson (65 years, 325 days)
4. James Madison (65 years, 353 days)
5. James Monroe (66 years, 310 days)
6. John Quincy Adams (61 years, 236 days)
7. Andrew Jackson (69 years, 354 days)
8. Martin Van Buren (58 years, 89 days)
9. William Henry Harrison (68 years, 23 days)
10. John Tyler (53 years, 291 days)
11. James K. Polk (53 years, 225 days)
12. Zachary Taylor (65 years, 227 days)
13. Millard Fillmore (53 years, 56 days)
14. Franklin Pierce (52 years, 101 days)
15. James Buchanan (69 years, 315 days)
16. Abraham Lincoln (56 years, 62 days)
17. Andrew Johnson (66 years, 212 days)
18. Ulysses S. Grant (58 years, 311 days)
19. Rutherford B. Hayes (57 years, 292 days)
20. James A. Garfield (49 years, 105 days)
21. Chester A. Arthur (56 years, 159 days)
22. Grover Cleveland (51 years, 351 days)
23. Benjamin Harrison (60 years, 128 days)
24. Grover Cleveland (60 years, 185 days)
25. William McKinley (58 years, 228 days)
26. Theodore Roosevelt (50 years, 128 days)
27. William Howard Taft (55 years, 170 days)
28. Woodrow Wilson (67 years, 37 days)
29. Warren G. Harding (57 years, 273 days)
30. Calvin Coolidge (54 years, 206 days)
31. Herbert Hoover (58 years, 86 days)
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt (63 years, 72 days)
33. Harry S. Truman (68 years, 37 days)
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower (70 years, 98 days)
35. John F. Kennedy (46 years, 177 days)
36. Lyndon B. Johnson (60 years, 146 days)
37. Richard M. Nixon (61 years, 198 days)
38. Gerald R. Ford (63 years, 165 days)
39. Jimmy Carter (56 years, 111 days)
40. Ronald Reagan (77 years, 349 days)
41. George H. W. Bush (68 years, 222 days)
42. Bill Clinton (54 years, 154 days)
43. George W. Bush (62 years, 198 days)
44. Barack Obama (55 years, 355 days)
45. Donald J. Trump (74 years, 220 days)
And as a bonus:
46. Joe Biden when he was inaugurated: 78 years, 61 days
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Biden: From Behind to Way Behind
By Stephen Macaulay
“Without more voters saying he’s up for the job, we won’t win.”
That was former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe on MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki, on Sunday June 30.
That was Plouffe’s wrap-up, having started his segment on the show noting that earlier that day CBS News had come out with a poll showing that 72% of Americans don’t think Biden “has the mental capability to be president.” (Plouffe added that 49% don’t think Trump has the mental stuff, but that 72-49 gap is like the Grand Canyon.)
Plouffe pointed out that Biden was behind in the polling before the debate and that his performance in Atlanta wasn’t a benefit.
“They could run the perfect campaign and they won’t get to 270 unless that fitness number were to get better,” Plouffe said. He pointed out that “campaigns don’t change big things,” and if Biden’s performance — or lack thereof — wasn’t a big thing, it is hard to imagine what is.
“There’s no Aaron Sorkin screenplay here,” Plouffe said.
It seemed as though Jen Psaki, who had been a press secretary for Joe Biden, couldn’t get Plouffe off the screen fast enough.
And Plouffe is supporting Biden, thinking that the man will continue to run.
Psaki had to move on to other guests, like 84-year-old Nancy Pelosi.
Guess who thinks that Biden still has the stuff?
One of the more absurd arguments about Biden dropping out, an argument that is voiced by Psaki and others, is that going to an open convention is “hard.”
Really? This was the sort of thing that happened every four years before there were things like the internet and AI.
Somehow getting a whole lot of people in Chicago’s United Center and having them vote is tricky.
Another thing that has been raised is that these are delegates, not the voters who went to primaries.
True, but isn’t the Electoral College based on. . .delegates?
The Biden family, we’ve learned, is behind the patriarch. Of course they are: these are his close family members. Just like Don and Eric think their dad should run.
Is that what should be behind the decision of who will be the next president: What the wife and kids think?
In June, before the debate, Gallup had Biden’s job approval rating at 38%.
Then that number was compared with the June rankings of recent incumbents who won their reelections — Obama, G.W. Bush, Clinton, Reagan.
Of those four, Obama had the lowest June number: 46%.
As for the losing incumbents, Trump was at 39% and G.H.W. Bush at 37%.
And Biden is in the middle.
That’s before he pulled his own variant of the Mitch McConnell Freeze.
Interesting to note that there probably wasn’t a Democrat-leaning pundit who didn’t call for McConnell to be removed after one of those episodes.
McConnell, to his credit, announced in February: “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter.
“So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”
It doesn’t matter how many speeches Biden makes with a teleprompter or ads showing him shouting (again, teleprompted) about “getting up.”
People were disaffected in notable numbers before.
His Atlanta outing has done nothing but engender more doubt about his capacity.
If people decide that there is no good choice in November — either a serial liar or a man who doesn’t seem to have all of his lights on — and stay home, the side where there is the most enthusiasm is going to win.
And whatever enthusiasm there was for Biden has certainly diminished, if not disappeared.
He, and the rest of the Democrat infrastructure need to do the hard thing.
Because another Trump presidency will undoubtedly be a whole lot harder.
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View from the Right
Writing in The Atlantic, Tom Nichols repeated a fear that struck many never-Trumpers, including defectors from the right after last Thursday’s debate: “I am no longer sure that Biden is electable.” Then, on Sunday, New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote that he fears what would happen if President Biden wins re-election.
“(F)or the same reason that Trump’s incapacities seemed likely to yield dangers,” in his first term, Douthat writes, “it seems plausible that Biden’s decline has itself encouraged our enemies, and been partially responsible for the gravity of the challenges we face.”
One thing on which the two op-ed pieces agree is that the “Biden Era” has ended. Meanwhile, the Biden campaign pushed back hard over the weekend to say, essentially, that the incumbent president is fit or another term, which would end when he is 86, and anyway, he will not step down and release his delegates to a (vape-filled?) room in August. Our terribly divided political landscape thus is splitting into even more factions.
That’s where you come in. If you are a pro-MAGA conservative, or a never-Trump conservative, or a liberal, progressive or hard-left, let’s discuss the Trump v. Biden election here with civility.
Go to the COMMENTS section in the appropriate (right or left) front-page column or email editors@thehustings.news, and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.
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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news