Setting limits on old people running for office
Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
So wrote T.S. Eliot in “East Coker,” the second of his Four Quartets. I was reminded of these lines while thinking about a conversation I had recently with a friend and former colleague. It was a couple of weeks before the recent election and had to do with Christine O’Donnell, the Republican senatorial candidate in Delaware.
I had not paid much attention to her myself, because I don’t live in Delaware and who the citizens of Delaware choose to represent them in the U.S. Senate seems none of my business. My friend doesn’t live in Delaware, either, but he seemed to think that O’Donnell was somehow paradigmatic of all that was wrong with conservatives in this country.
Be that as it may, the impression of O’Donnell that I got was that she was a tad flaky. Given that she was running for the seat occupied for more than a quarter-century by Vice President Biden, who himself has an illustrious record of bizarre utterances, this would hardly seem a disqualification.
But none of this had anything to do with the lines from Eliot’s poem. Those popped into my mind when I thought about the man O’Donnell had beaten in the primary — Rep. Mike Castle, the state’s former governor and establishment pol par excellence. I hadn’t thought much about him, either — in fact, nothing at all — and was surprised to learn that, at 71, he is two years older than I am.
I couldn’t help wondering what the hell he was running for at that age. Oh, I know that the U.S. Congress has long had more than its share of dotards. Wasn’t Strom Thurmond still in office at 100? And Robert Byrd, the former Grand Kleagle who recently was called home to Our Lord, was in his 90s when he died. New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg turns 87 in January.
I do not believe the Founders would approve. They set limits on how old you had to be before you could run for office: 25 for Congress, 30 for the Senate, 35 for President. They probably never thought that many people past 70 would be running because in those days not many people made it to 70, let alone well past that age.
So maybe it’s time for an amendment prohibiting anyone 70 or older from running for anything. Is this ageism? I don’t think so. I’m no spring chicken myself, so I clearly have no animus against old people.
Which brings me to the point of those lines of Eliot: There just is no connection between how old you are and how shrewd you are. Some old fart sitting in some stuffy legislative body for most of his adult life is unlikely to be in touch with anything vital that is going on in the world. If we need to have some assembly to give voice to the doddering and tottering, then let’s start a new one, some council of elders, where a bunch of old folks who, if they were really smart, would have found some better way to spend their final years, can sit around and opine and deliver from time to time pointless messages to amuse the rest of us.
There must be plenty of people around who remember that ghastly film Harold and Maude (a simple-minded young person’s fable about old people). I don’t remember it in any detail, because I only saw it once and hated every minute of it. The character Maude, played by Ruth Gordon better than the role deserved, I remember as an old fool, trying to trick herself into forgetting how old she is by aping the notions of youth — and let’s not get into the sentimental crap about how wise the young can be. (Now that I think of it, maybe Harold and Maude is what spawned all those fierce-looking duffers I see jogging themselves to death every morning, trying to prove to themselves — and to everyone else, I guess — that they have every bit as much vim and vigor as they did when they were in their 20s. Yeah, sure.)
As for me, I say put the voting age back to 21, and take some steps to remind professional politicians that there’s only so many years we should have to put up with them. After all, as Eliot further pointed out:
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
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This kills me at 55. I was thinking that if I could do some meaningful work, contributing to society somehow for the next 15 years, I would then be 70, still young enough to make a political contribution, maybe run for a Senate seat, or be a Congressman. I think I would be good for the country in either post.
I would be inclined to make an exception in you case, Rus, though I really think you could put that time to better use.
Frank, good post … thanks for sharing. You make some good points … though I wonder if I’ll feel the same way when I turn 70 :-)
I will disagree strongly – though respectfully! – with one point, however, and that is your memory of Ruth Gordon’s character in “Harold and Maude” … and this comes from someone who loved the film, and has seen it a few times.
There was nothing “old fool, trying to trick herself” about Maude. Rather, she was someone who lived who celebrated life, and lived it to the fullest … all the while, adhering to the values, the principals that had been an integral part of a long and colorful time on Earth.
And, it was a life that had an ending, at a time and in a manner of her choosing, while she was “in touch with anything vital that is going on in the world.”
I wish I had something poignant and insightful to add, but all I got is:
Amen, brother!
Hi Jeff,
What you say is what everyone who told me to go see the film said. And, of course, if that is what you and they got from the film, you and they are right. Obviously, the film rubbed me the wrong way. I’ve known a few Maudes in my time, and they rubbed me the wrong way, too. I also hate King of Hearts. I think we can chalk this up to my cranky side.
Citing “Four Quartets” is admirable and appropriate in the political context. Eliot wrote many other poems, too, on the folly of age, as well as its wisdom. My main point of agreement with you, and with Eliot, is that indeed wisdom is not guaranteed with age. I have often noted that calendrical age and mental age often have nothing to do with each other, in youth as well as in the aged. And of course there’s the well-documented “Peter Pan syndrome” in which many men simply refuse to ever grow up—some of these are most definitely in politics.