attackfighter
Emperor
They've begun to die from old age and their death rate will rise exponentially as they get older. Life expectancy doesn't mean you're 100% likely to live to that age - but rather that it's the median age that people die at.
Will we have no more old U.S. presidents?
- Thread starter Disgustipated
- Start date
They've begun to die from old age and their death rate will rise exponentially as they get older. Life expectancy doesn't mean you're 100% likely to live to that age - but rather that it's the median age that people die at.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
Right, so the average baby boomer will die in twenty years or so. As I said, that's a fair number of elections. Combine that with the fact that older people are generally more politically involved and we've got many more years wherein the baby boomers will excercise significant pull within American politics.
Disgustipated
Deity
some are dying today. I doubt most will reach 82. A diet of hamburgers their entire lives can't be healthy. Many eat mcdonald's and such crap. Surely this will start to have some effect on the lifespan of Americans and other westerners.
Yeah, this is correct. It'll be at least another decade before the outsized influence of Boomers starts to go away. People in their mid to late 60s are the most politically active.
Anyway, I don't think we have enough data to draw that kind of conclusion. Only one of the Republicans running now is kinda young (and Ron Paul is a fossil), and the Dem race in 2004 had several older candidates (and Clinton wasn't exactly young in 2008).
If Obama wins in 2012, I think we'll see a pretty young candidate pool, since this administration is unlikely to produce a Democratic standard barer, but that could easily change in the next cycle.
GhostWriter16
Deity
I'm 17, and 30 isn't really THAT old. According to the averages, you've still got more than half your life left (And the averages lie against you due to premature deaths that AREN'T due to age.)
40 seems to be at least kinda getting there. About half your life is gone.
50 is old.
In all seriousness though, I would view the late 30's and 40's as more "Middle Aged" and the 50's and 60's as more on the "Old" side, though not in the same category as 70+ (Very possibly nearing the end of your life due to age, rather than merely being in the second half of it.)
In any case, I don't think age should be as much of a big deal as are principles, beliefs, and experience in the world (Not a career politician.) I will defend the 35 minimum though. There's no way I trust anyone under 35 to be our President (Or, as per above, I could stand to see a "Middle Aged" President but not for a truly "Young" person to be President, except perhaps under very exceptional circumstances.)
I do find it a bit interesting that our oldest candidate is our smallest government supporter. It seems a general trend that older people tend to trust the establishment of the state more in general. Any thoughts on why?
Ron Paul may be an outlier. Other older folks may be jaded to all the "small government is always better" talk, or have heard it all before and just want to get out what they put in (social security, medicare). Or maybe they went through the bigger wars and have a different perspective due to that.
Any number of reasons.
Older people trust the government more because having a functioning government is part of their living memory. The government didn't really cease to function well until the anti-government politcos gained control of it in the 80s and 90s.
