The Hillary Clinton age trap

Talking about age and health is a losing GOP strategy, and an unnecessary one

June 5, 2014 2:00AM ET

by Jill Lawrence

There is no avoiding age as an issue in presidential campaigns. Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and John McCain all had to deal with it, and 2016 prospect Hillary Clinton is already fielding ham-fisted Republican references to her age and health. The conservative Drudge Report even suggested she was holding a walker on the cover of People magazine — except that the walker was actually a patio chair.

Before Drudge, there was Karl Rove, who reportedly wondered whether Clinton’s 2012 concussion and blood clot might have led to brain damage. In the media dust-up that followed, Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus said questions about age and health were “fair game.” That’s true. And it’s standard for presidential candidates to provide medical records or at least a summary of their health status from their doctors.

But discussing the issue is not a winning strategy for Republicans, a fact reinforced by a new poll in which two-thirds of Americans said they disapproved of Rove’s remarks. Even subtle attempts to highlight Clinton’s age are likely to be self-defeating. On top of that, they are unnecessary.

Let’s look at the numbers. Reagan was the oldest U.S. president to take office, at 69. If Clinton runs and wins, that’s the same age she would be on Inauguration Day 2017. The media are not going to let anyone forget that historical factoid, so there is no need for Republicans to repeat it and every reason for them not to.

For one, it would simply give Democrats more fodder to argue that the GOP is waging a “war on women.” It’s risky business to raise age and health issues about a pioneering feminist when your party has a significant gender gap and is already playing defense on abortion, birth control and other issues important to many women.

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