Column: Is age really just a number? Not when it comes to Biden and Trump

In less than three weeks, I’ll hit 70, which seems like a good time to launch a run for president of the United States.

Donald Trump, 77, hit the big 7-0 before becoming president in 2016. President Biden is 3½ years ahead of Trump, and they’re likely to face off for a second time in 2024. If I were to jump in as an independent, maybe I could lock up the youth vote.

It’s not a negative to have the leader of the free world drawing Social Security checks; after all, we’re not far off from an era in which people older than 65 outnumber those younger than 18. And we’re just hours away from the premiere of ABC’s “The Golden Bachelor,” in which a 72-year-old searches for a date, and who knows where that might lead? You may recall a prime-time TV show that helped catapult its star into the Oval Office.

California is about to be hit by an aging population wave, and Steve Lopez is riding it. His column focuses on the blessings and burdens of advancing age — and how some folks are challenging the stigma associated with older adults.

Read his other columns

I bring all of this up because age and fitness are already central issues in the next election, with polls suggesting voters think Biden, in particular, is faltering physically and mentally.

If you were to line up Biden and Trump for a lap around the track, I think I’d put my money on Biden. As for mental acuity, there is no more obvious threat to the human race than climate change, and only one of the two men is cognitively impaired on that point.

To be fair, there are legitimate questions about how Biden and Trump will age. But there’s no surefire way to see into the future.

So what should we do about that?

“I think the simple and right answer is that ageism is unacceptable, and that it’s not about how old you are — it’s not about chronology — it’s about competency and ability,” said Paul Irving, senior consultant to the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging.

And yet, we all know that the older you get, the greater the risk for a number of ailments including cognitive impairment.

Which leads one to ponder why, at a time when such a diverse array of young people are a dominant force in American technology, social media, culture and entertainment, the average age of a U.S. senator is 65, and the top two presidential candidates, both white men, were born in the 1940s.

It’s partly because it takes a lot of money to run a campaign, and wealth is concentrated among older people. And older adults vote in higher numbers than younger people.

“People are just not interested enough,” said Ric Alonzo, 39, a tech engineer who ran for City Council in Montebello last year and came up just short. “I haven’t had a political conversation with anyone in months.”

I met Alonzo in 2020 when he was among the hordes of volunteers stumping for Bernie Sanders in the senator’s presidential bid. Sanders was 78 at the time, but age wasn’t an issue for Alonzo and others who were energized by what they saw as Sanders’ passion, along with his positions on immigration reform, college loans, climate change and income inequality.

“Most importantly, he had fire — things I’d never seen in a politician,” Alonzo said, and though he’d vote for Biden as a “lesser of two evils,” he wishes the president had a pinch of Trump’s two-fisted audacity. “Trump is a loudmouth and he has fire in the belly, and he appeals to people with those conservative values.”

“There are legitimate questions about how Biden and Trump will age,” Steve Lopez writes. “But there’s no surefire way to see into the future.”

(Associated Press)

Perception is everything in politics, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst for several decades. And yes, there seems to be a perception that Trump looks and acts younger than Biden, who has had a stumble or two. She brought up President Ford, who once tripped and was forever branded a klutz, thanks in part to a “Saturday Night Live” skit.

Jeffe — a contemporary of Biden and Trump — said Biden’s genteel manner, contrasted with Trump’s confrontational bluster, may also fuel the perception that one is old and addled while the other is a young buck itching for a good fight. We live in a coarse and abrasive culture in which being civil might be seen as old-fashioned, or lacking in vitality.

“Biden’s gotta go hit him back, but he’s a product of an older political culture and it’s hard for him,” said Jeffe, adding that Biden seems to live by a cautionary principle: “Never wrestle a pig, because you get dirty and the pig enjoys it.”

Jeffe and former L.A. Times city editor Bill Boyarsky, 88, tackled the age issue in a recent episode of their trenchant and always entertaining podcast — Inside Golden State Politics. “It’s not about age, it’s about behavior,” Jeffe said during the podcast. “It’s not about, ‘Are you too old for the job?’ It’s ‘Can you get the job done?’”

“Let the voters decide who’s too old to run and who’s not,” Boyarsky said. “That’s why we have elections.”

Kirstie Jeffries, a 34-year-old tech marketing specialist from Studio City, was campaigning for Sen. Elizabeth Warren when I met her four years ago. When Warren bowed out, Jeffries went with Biden and hasn’t regretted it.

“I definitely wish we had candidates who were younger,” said Jeffries, who would like to see more women, in particular. “But that said, I’m not considering it an issue in this election. … Biden is old, but I think he’s doing OK.”

We may all like to think we can do our jobs at peak performance forever, but when I first wrote about this topic in April, I noted that there’s dignity in letting go of one thing and moving on to the next. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has frozen in public more than once, ought to take heed.

In April, Keck USC geriatrician Laura Mosqueda told me it was time for Sen. Dianne Feinstein to move on, not because she was 89, but because she could no longer do the job that taxpayers had elected her to do. Mosqueda also said that she didn’t see evidence that Biden was unable to do his job.

And to my mind, there’s still no such compelling evidence, although you can be sure that Trump and his supporters will keep trying to convince us that Biden is practically comatose while the economy collapses and crime rates soar, neither of which is true.

I wouldn’t be shocked or disappointed if Biden were to announce that he’s ready to pass the baton, but I don’t expect that to happen. He’ll instead tout his achievements, remind everyone that Trump has been indicted more times than we can count, and talk about the value of civility, experience and a steady hand at a time when insurrectionists gather at the gates.

I expect it to be Biden vs. Trump, Round 2, and I hope — naively, perhaps — that character and substance, not age, decide the contest.

steve.lopez@latimes.com