Presentation, Demographics, and Health: The Role of Age on the Oval Office

It is a curiosity as to why so few people are speaking about age in relation to our current presidential election. The public’s perception of a candidate’s age has been impactful on campaigns in the past, both young and old apart. Theres the obvious examples of Ronald Regan being at the top of this list of eldest statesman, while the bottom is peppered with the names of the Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt, the young Jack Kennedy and the recent presidencies of the comeback kid Bill Clinton, and our current president Bo Obama. In an election where the leading candidates of both the Republican and Democratic could easily become the second and first eldest president in the United States history. It appears strange how it comes at a time where young apathetic voters are moving in droves towards Bernie Sanders, an admitted Democratic Socialist who also holds the potentiality of becoming the oldest ever elected president at the age of 75. And while today’s election is just one example of some 57 different contests, the effects of the perception age on the presidency has played great influence in one’s ability to run and stay in control while in office, either through the pageantry and marketing of electoral politics to the health and ability to lead under stressful and direly situations.

In this paper, I will be analyzing and defining the multiple effects age has in relation to the Oval office. The first section will focus on the ways in which age plays into the electoral process. This first factor plays out in quite a few different ways. America’s perception of age has changed throughout time, both in the way in which it manifests within home life and the ways in which it factors into the public sphere, economically and culturally. The public’s relationship to those in office have changed as well. One example being the elderly statesman like appearance of the founding fathers and their role in the birth and breeding of a new nation, followed by a generation of “gendered republicanism” and youth revival. The “generation[al] lines” of the electorate have even pitted these sub groups against each other and even against the political machines The age of a candidate has also been a marketing tool in and of itself. Placing precedence on the fresh new face, and eyes, of a young candidate versus the tenure of experience held by an older statesman, and I will show how presidential campaigns and sitting presidents have used their age in an assortment of ways.

Beyond the more superficial appeals that age can be used to draw some distinction around the presidency, we can draw more focus around the physical and institutional effects it can have on the role of presidency. Elder statesman and the youthful alike have felt the full brunt of the office of the Presidency. The physical and mental health of a president can and has restricted the effectiveness of the state. An individual can only imagine how hard it must be to appear as a strong unifying leader when the effects of age and aging, in relation to the countless stress of office, have already played havoc on one’s body. Electoral campaign staffers and White House officials alike, have played a role in hiding the ill feelings of some of America’s greatest historical figures. Heart attacks and degenerative brain disorders do not just effect the body of the politic, but the halls of the White House too. While the grave health concerns of some of the past presidents have be hidden from the general public, the transparency efforts of today have pushed both those running and sitting within the office to release their medical records for public viewing. Furthermore the adoption of the 25th amendment in 1967, passed just fours years after the death of President Kennedy, has paved the way towards clearing the confusion around the “Tyler precedent.” Outlining the ascension of the “acting president” and the process of voluntary and involuntary transfers of powers, back and forth, within the presidency. Taking residence within the White House itself appears to have placed a toll on many a president’s body. With water born bacteria possibly found in the pipes of a pre-waterfiltered White House, to the more modern perception of degenerative stress on the body. The health of the President has played a deciding role, at times, on the effectives of the Executive Branch.

Demographic information in relation to “socioeconomic status, gender, mobility, and age” have all been used as subtle indicators of the likeliness to vote, held party , political ideology, and an indicator for whom a person it to vote for or against. Age is just one of many indicators, but time and time again it has played a crucial role in the subtle shifts needed to win elections. It’s generally believed today, that in the United States the older a person is the more likely they are going to get out and vote. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll indicates that those between the age range of 50 to 64 years old are almost twice as likely, 42% vs 22%, to be considered a regular voter, voting every election compared to 18–29 year olds and are also three times as likely to be registered to vote. One reason for this unequal distribution can be found in a “Public Opinion Quarterly” issue from 2007, which points out that younger voters “have a higher mobility rate… [and are thus] more likely to be purged due to a change of address.” However what appears to be much more relevant, according to PRISCILLA L. SOUTHWELL of the University of Oregon, is how voter participation is linked with one’s sense of political alienation. Southwell findings, “underscore the demobilizing effect of powerlessness and meaningless but suggest that cynicism can serve as a catalyst to voting once individuals have achieved a minimal level of efficacy.” Similarly, one California study focused on the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, found that neighborhoods with the highest rates of home foreclosure were less likely to vote in presidential election that year. Economic models have shown that as time progresses, individuals are typically more financially self-sufficient then they had been in the past, socially entangled within their community and “have an expanding political awareness” due to property entanglements. As time goes on and one progresses in wealth their sense of alienation within the system may reduce, thusly voting becomes more of a civic duty or a representation of one’s economic well being and position within society, instead of as being a member of the outsider class. Altogether it is hard to point to one clear distinction as to why there is a varied distribution across age groups in terms of voter turnout. Others who have speculated on voter turn out, in association with economic well being, have posted towards job type. Where younger individuals have less job stability and typically rely on hourly wages. This in many cases can place a squeeze on workers who wish to leave work, but risk agitating bosses or run the risk of a smaller pay check. Often, older workers are more likely to be salaried, allowing for flexibility in scheduling and the ability to travel to the polls during the day, and on the upper end of the age demographics, political scientists have speculated that older individuals, who are retired, have more free time to attend the polls and wait to cast their vote.

Age demographics themselves can also represent different forms of political ideology. First being the power of presence. “Since 1978, voting rates have been consistently higher in presidential election years than in congressional election years” according to the census bureau who started recording midterm election data in 1978. In the 1948 the Presidential election had 51% of the voting age population vote, while two years later in 1950, only 41% of the population voted, and the last time a midterm election surpassed a Presidential election was in 1828. Age demographics play a huge role in midterm elections. Since 1978, voters between the age of 18–34 have steadily reduced in participation, from 33.6% of the voting body to as low as 23.1% in 2014, a loss 10.5%, while during this same time span voters age 65+ have consistently made up roughly 59.4% of mid term voters. 2014’s midterm election saw a 13.2% underrepresentation of 18–34 year old votes while those 65+ drew an 8.3% overrepresentation. Those 65+ years of age were just 20.1% of the potential voting population in 2014, but ended up being 28.4 percent of the total vote during the midterms but just 19.5% in 2008. Voter turnout for those 18–34 years of age in the same presidential election was 24.4 compared to just 16.2% in 2014. It’s easy to imagine how that 8.2% percent decrease can changed the tide of a close election. Besides wining the presidency, the Democratic party had gained 21 Congressional seats in 2008. Yet two years later during the 2010 midterm election, where the pattern of decreased youth voter turnout continued, the Republican party gained 63 seats within both houses, a 9.1% increase in voting power.

This pattern of higher voter turn out for older demographics exists within different time periods too. The Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement of the 1960s brought about some of the highest voter turnout rates in American electoral history. 1964 saw a record turnout of 69.9% of the eligible voting population come. Those 45–54 years of age, voted at a rate of 76.7%, close by were those 55–64 at 76.4% and those 65–74 at 72.1%. The most accurate demographic information shows those 53–56 years of age, the age most effected by the Great Depression, voting at a whopping 87.6%. While all the way at the bottom of our list was those 18–20 years of age at a mere 39.7%, a group’s who lack of turnout may have led them to be heavily drafted from six years in the future. Similar demographic figures can be seen in the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections as well, but at slight 1–2%. decrease. Records from the previous decade also show similar trends where those in the youngest of age demographics tend to vote the least, and as age increases so to does the propensity to vote.

To make things clear, age is not a tell tale sign of party affiliation or political ideology. Party ideologies and platforms have shifted over time and so to has their perception amongst voter’s eyes. The party of Lincoln, which went on to free the slaves, would 100 years later, diametrically oppose the Civil Rights movements and build its base under the Southern strategy. Parties and their base change and therefore over long periods of time it’s hard to lay claim that older voters or younger voters will viemilently support one party over another. The idea that young voters tend to vote Democrat is not entirely true either. Since 1952, four times voters under the age of 30 have preferred the Republican presidential candidate over the Democratic contender, while in the presidential election of 1992, 23% favored third party candidate Ross Perot against Bush’s 37% and Clinton’s 40%. Today’s affinity of older voters supporting Republican candidates could be correlated with the polarizing yet high youth support for the Reagan administration in the 80s, which existed except under college students. Other examples of tracking generations against historical events and time periods. We see youths during the time of the Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal showed an increase tendency to vote for a Democrat throughout life. Historical figures have come to not just be an identifying figure within a party, but guiding stone into the party. Youth party affiliation swung back 11 points in favor of Kennedy in the 1960 election creating life long Kennedy Democrats, just as we saw in the historic turnout of youth voters in 2004, 2008 and 2012 for the Democratic party and Barrack Obama. Today, we could be living through the same historic trend with Bernie Sanders, who’s overwhelming support by young voters could reverberate through future elections.

There is much debate within the historical and political science worlds in terms of what causes party affiliation shifts between demographic age groups and amongst the aging. Prior, I had pointed to increases in economic well being as a sign of individuals moving towards political alignments which appeal to lower tax rates on the wealthy and propertied. Thomas M. Carsey, a political scientist from Florida State University, sees “individuals changing their party ties in response to the new issues, rather than adjusting their issue attitudes based on their party attachment… [and] individuals increasingly choose party identifications based on the new issues. So as identity politics becomes more and more popular, and as the polarization over issues such as “social welfare, racial, and cultural policy agendas,” becomes common place. Parties that appeal to a more conservative interpretation of history and social issues, will continue to appeal to an older and older voter electorate, until a political realignment. Where as instead younger individuals will grow up, experience, and become normalized to these more polarizing issues. Carsey’s research does offer up some other interesting points relatable to this topic. While his data does attempt to represent patterns outside his data period of the 1992, 1996, & 2000 elections, his theory can lend some help in identifying long term effects on party affiliation changes. He proposed that though, “party identification is a prime mover of other political attitudes under typical conditions” that when, “party leaders, candidates, and platforms take distinct stands on these issues, it signals to citizens which views on these issues go with each party.” And as political parties continue to heighten the importance of social welfare, “racial, and cultural policy issues” (identity politics), those less edepth at changing, will gradually shift their party affiliation towards a more conservative party.

Just as there is debate amongst political scientists and historians when it comes to the migratory patterns of political aflliation, such as the “Michigan model” which states people’s party affiliation is an “unmoved mover… largely unchanging over time even as events change,” or the “revisionist perspective” which sees party affiliation as, “a summary of the political evaluations individuals have formed over time,” and finally Carsey’s view point which is a mixture of the two, suggesting learned affiliation at youth plus changing events shape one’s perspective. Some historians and political scientists have theorized how birthdate, i.e. generation, comes to effect one’s outlook on life. One of the more popular and disputed theories comes from the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. Entitled generational theory, this theorem outlines a process in which generations of individuals are influenced and shaped differently by their same “age location in history.” This shaping and molding is the result of perceiving these events at different moments in one’s life cycle: childhood, young adult, mid life and old age. These generations, based on 20–22 year spans that repeat every 80–90 years called saeculums, tend to share common beliefs and behaviors, defined as a collective persona. Collective personas are generational archetypes that develop as of a response to one’s birth in a particular era. Era themselves, which are part of their own 20–22 year cycle that repeats every 80–90 years are defined as the social mood of a time period. Essentially what Howe and Strauss are saying, is generations can be defined within four different archetypes, each archetype is birthed as of the result of individuals developing within a particular era. These two cycles are offset and their shifts are triggered by historical moments. It’s a very convoluted model that has been criticized extensively.They do have their own data to support their theory, be it by their own hand selected data, but they do have from other historians. The proposition feels eerily reminiscent to a double helix like cyclic perspective towards history.

What can be learned, for sure, from Strauss and Howe’s work is that important historical events can create periods of great change in society and also within people. Perspective is greatly important, one’s position, in regards to the life cycle, is certainly going to shape the way an individual is going to perceive an important historical event. A 50 year old Detroit factory manager is going to have a very different perspective then a 17 year old male the day after the attacks on Pearl Harbor or Millennial’s perspective on the 2008 housing crisis versus a soon to be retired 60 year old who has a double mortgage. In regards to myself, I was just 13 year old New York suburbanite the day of September 11th 2001. My 18 year old neighbor, who like myself was aware that those pilots used the Hudson River to navigate towards the city and could have just as easily flown into the nuclear power plant in our town, Indian Point, took it upon himself to enlist shortly there after. While there are holes in the generational argument, we can see how different historical events are able to shape the minds and outlooks of a generation. Creating economic and or educational advantages for one group, while austerity measures and economic recessions can effect the overall health, educational status, a safety of others. The same effects which can be viewed at a generational level can also be looked through the lens of race, gender, class, and geography.

Age effects the ballot box and political decision making process in an assortment of ways. Besides just looking at the elector’s age it is also important to take a look at how age effects a candidates outlook and popularity. Of the two leading candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties, both are in their late 60s. Hillary Clinton, age 68 who turns 69 later this year, could potentially becomes the second oldest ever elected president in the history of the United States, and Donald Trump, who turns 70 later this year, holds the potential of becoming the oldest president ever elected. Bernie Sanders, who’s currently 74 years old, could potentially enter office at the same age of Ronald Regan at the end of his first term. 2016 is a first for many, as the median age for elected presidents is just 55 years of age, Sanders could be entering office 20 years above said average and 20 years older then barrack Obama.

Press coverage of this most recent election has been rather limited on the discussion of age. Sanders and Clinton both have released recent medical records. You can even watch mashups of Senator Sanders running through airports on his way to campaign gigs or him walking to work. Age has been a factor and focal point in many electoral runs before. Most recently, Barack Obama’s campaign featured his youth entanglement, presence on social media, his admiration for popular hip-hop artists, and his clean image as a young, 46 year old, junior senator from Illinois. Campaign adds and videos posted to Youtube showed Obama playing basketball and some hard D on many campaign stops. George W. Bush during his campaign and while in office, was often shown portrayed as healthy and vibrant with his Secret Service detail following behind him as he ran around the White House. Most notably was former President John F. Kennedy, elected at just 43 years of age, becoming the 35 president of the United States and the second youngest candidate ever elected to office. Kennedy was known for is youthful and attractive looks which helped him mesmerize television audiences in the first ever televised presidential debate. JFK may be the most notable young president, but he wasn’t the first. Gun toting, rough riding, adventurer Teddy Roosevelt was a wild one indeed. He often brought photographers with him on his outlandish hunting adventures. Besides a notorious hunter, he was a well known hiking expert, and was the original signer of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which outline the national parks system.

Besides the good looks of a young candidate, a fresh young face can be looked at as a form of political empowerment. The Presidential office throughout the 80s, was held by two of the three oldest members of the office, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. When the Pew research group set out to find how voters favored the new relatively young faces of presidential candidate George Clinton and his vice president Al Gore, respondents favored the, “idea… [of these] young candidates” at a 63% favorability rating vs a 33 disapproval. The 2008 presidential campaign played out slightly differently. On one hand was Barrack Obama, 46 years young at the time, running against the well established senior Senator from Arizona, John McCain of 71 years of age. While Obama came under criticism by some as being unexperienced, between 10–20% of those polled throughout 2008, saw him as “being to young to run” for the highest office. While John McCain saw average undesirables of “being to old to run” ranging from 23–36% throughout the same time period. Unsurprisingly this data correlated with party affiliation on both sides, Democrats were more likely to find Obama old enough and McCain to old, while Republicans were more like to find the opposite, while independents fell into the middle. Interestingly, as each candidate rose and declined throughout the months leading up to the election, so to did the view points of the electorate. As Obama pulled away late in the race, the public perception of his age, as a negative, began to wane over time, and reciprocally against McCain as time ticked away near election time. There was also an age correlation as well, with older individuals perceiving Obama as to young more often then younger individuals, and younger individuals seeing McCain as older more often then older individuals.

The Presidential office has placed a heavy health burned on some. Many past presidents have been sick and even have died in office. Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in office. His affliction went to “shatter his physical constitution, psyche, and sense of reality.” Even though JFK was often portrayed as a young vibrant man, he suffered sickness throughout the 50s and 60s and possibly even younger. Suffering from “spastic colitis, Addison’s disease, and severe back pain” and was a known consumer of methamphetamine. His doctor, nicknamed Dr. Feelgood, injected him with 15mg daily to help ease his spastic back pains. Probably the most well known President to suffer from health issue in office was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At the age of 39, FDR fell ill on vacation and developed a form of permanent paralysis, which quickly prevented him from walking without assistance. It is believed that he came to have suffered from Polio, but was never properly tested for historians to know accurately. Medical records do show that he suffered from hypertension and an enlarged heart. In his last few months to live, during the Yalta conference Winston Churchill’s physician noted Roosevelt sickly conditioned and stated to the Prime Minister that it appeared Roosevelt only had, “a few months to live.” Within his last few months to live FDR began to “experience significant weight loss, headaches, fatigue, and an inability to concentrate for long periods of time.”

Grover Cleveland may be by far the most interesting of all the case. In the spring of 1893, a few months after his second election, Grover sought out the medical advice of the White House doctor, for a small pain in the roof of his mouth. The physician quickly took a sample and sent it the most renowned specialist in Boston. Turns out, the growth that had been developing on the campaign trail was a carcinoma tumor. So in a Bond esque move, Cleveland and a team of some of the top surgeons in the country boarded a yacht July 4 weekend, and sailed around the Cheesepeak Bay for four days, while Cleveland recovered from his surgery. Which involved cutting open the top of his mouth, and removing the tumor that reached from the roof to his eye socket. Surprisingly Cleveland healed, and only required the placement of a vulcanized rubber mouth guard to cover the large hole in the roof of his mouth. Even more surprising, was that this surgery was done without knowledge of the public. Each member of the surgery team took an oath of silence that July 1st day. The public would not find out about the surgery until some 24 years later, when the lead surgeon, Dr. Keen, published an article on the operation in the Saturday Evening Post.

Compared to many other nations, the United States is still a relatively young nation, but it is still rich in history. Age in many cases has been a determining outcome in many situations. At the base, age and aging are just the culmination of experience, but in the end that is what history really is, the charting of experience throughout time, and this process wether it be from the point of view of the electorate or at the hands of the President, it is a chart hard to explain. It can help predict the way someone may vote, but slides ten years higher or lower and you can have a different result, and pose this question 30 years prior to the same age groups, and you may result in a totally different answer once again. Studying the aging process has given me the chance to chart my personal experience and life, and attempt to place it within the context of history. This slow process with an enormous set of variables often turns into countless unpredictable outcomes and to me that is assuring, it means nothing is certain for sure, and that makes me happy.

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