What I mean is: Right now we (the US, since I live there) have FIVE ex-presidents alive: Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr, and Obama. Is that the most that’s ever been alive as ex-president?
Putting ex-president in bold because I don’t mean being alive as counting, I’m sure that while Regan and maybe even Nixon or Ford were still alive, those five (and Trump) were already born…but they had not yet been president yet. So talking about post-presidency only.
Five is the record? Have we ever had five alive (plus one current) before today?
He almost died a couple of years ago. IIRC W’s email account was hacked and emails about it were released, and it was to the point of planning the eulogies at the impending funeral.
Carter looks pretty unkillable on the other hand. His holding the ever-increasing record for longest post-presidency certainly doesn’t hurt the statistics.
I wonder what the global record is for numbers of living ex-leaders? Australia has managed seven living PMs at a time - Whitlam, Frazer, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd and Gillard all still with us at Abbott’s election, though we’ve lost the first two since then
I believe you mean Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, Tyler, and Van Buren. There was no President Mallard. Fillmore’s first name was Millard, and there is a comic strip duck called Mallard Fillmore
Canada currently has seven: Clark (elected 1979); Turner (1984); Mulroney (1984); Campbell (1993); Chrétien (1993); Martin (2003); and Harper (2006).
Of course, parliamentary systems generally run to some PMs with short turnovers: Clark had a minority government of less than a year and Turner and Campbell were elected by their parties on the retirement of long-term PMs and then lost at the next general election.
What is the typical age of PM on taking office. There are notable exceptions among US presidents, since Kennedy we’ve had Clinton, Bush II, and Obama becoming president earlier than life than the average before then, and Reagan and now Trump I think older than the average, but over the history of the presidency they’ve averaged older and lived shorter lives. I expect we could see a time in the future when six or more former presidents are alive at the same time.
President Booker is going to be 51 when he takes office. I hoping it trends lower because a lot of the names that get thrown around are too damn old in my opinion.
I don’t really care about the specific age so much, but I do care about a president being too damn old at any age. This is true more than ever right now because of the pace of change in society and the great difference in our views of the presidency from time past. The world changed greatly in the 1960s in many ways, and technologically there was a tremendous change over the past 20-30 years. Some candidates could also be too damn young to do the job properly, not because of their chronological age but their level of maturity.
Thompson, Clark, Campbell, Harper and Trudeau were all in their 40s when they became PM. (Not that it did Thompson any good. He died of a massive heart attack at a Windsor Castle garden party shortly after being sworn of the British Privy Council.)
I think the rest were all in their 50s and 60s. The oldest was Tupper, who took office at 75, for a grand total of 69 days.
