Pre-Post-McConnell Jockeying & ’24 Dropout-itis

Yesterday, the 81-year-old minority leader, Mitch McConnell, seemed to freeze up while addressing reporters in Kentucky, the second such incident in as many months.
Yesterday, the 81-year-old minority leader, Mitch McConnell, seemed to freeze up while addressing reporters in Kentucky, the second such incident in as many months. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Tara Palmeri
September 1, 2023

Age is always on the mind in Washington—a town that likes to remind us that each election is the most consequential in a generation, and that still genuflects upon the KennedyNixon debate, the Lloyd Bentsen quip to Quayle, the Reagan retort about Mondale’s youth and inexperience, etcetera. But age is really on the town’s mind at the moment, as the country faces down a presidential rematch between a septuagenarian and octogenarian. The latest AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs survey poll, featured at the top of Mike Allen’s Axios newsletter, noted that 77 percent of Americans think Joe Biden is too old to be effective for four more years, including 69 percent of respondents who were Democrats. In his newsletter, Allen called him “the unwanted candidate.”