One difference is that Obama hadn’t been in the crosshairs of the Right Wing Smear Machine for years as AOC has. The GQP will have lots more ammunition (real and manufactured) and no compunctions about using it.
They did in 2012, and Obama still smoked them.
If the Constitution can set age minimums for people to be elected to the House, Senate, and President, then I see no reason why it would be wrong to set age maximums. The vast majority of federal jobs have mandatory retirement ages. I see no reason why politicians and senior judges need a special cutout that only exempts them from mandatory retirement.
Both Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated that they will not remove members who are no longer mentally competent to serve in office. Dianne Feinstein and Mitch McConnell were both serving past the point where they were mentally competent. Senator Strom Thurmond is probably the best example of this as his office performed his duties for the last 6 years he was in office.
Talk about damning with faint praise…
Because- now wait for it- those age minimums are in…wait for it...The Constitution. The very definition of what is Constitutional. Ageism is illegal in the USA.
Now, if you wanna pass (snicker) a Constitutional Amendment with age maximums, go for it. That would be- of course- political suicide for any elected official that proposed it. Senior citizens do this crazy thing called “voting”.
Because that would not be Constitutional-
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45078
The U.S. Constitution expressly grants each house of Congress the power to “punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”
Nor can they expel members for being black, or female, or disabled.
So
Because the Constitution says so.
I am conflicted on this point. Mostly, I think it is a fool’s errand to care what the Right thinks of our candidate, as they are going to hate them no matter who we nominate.
I do get the impression she would galvanize the Right more than any other candidate we would nominate. On the other hand, I would argue that Trump galvanized the Left like no candidate in history, and that didn’t do squat for us, so many galvanizing the other side just doesn’t matter.
cough-Buttigieg -cough
But yeah, I get your point. And the GOP hate machine can change how indy voters think.
cough-Biden-cough
Even granted that AOC needs more experience before running for President, I don’t know that she needs to run for some higher office. She’s already nationally known. She could just stay in Congress and keep moving up the seniority chart for another decade or rwo.
Yeah, she has already learned to not shoot her mouth off, and maybe in 2032? Or Veep?
If she accepted a VP nod from another candidate, she’s not as smart as I gave her credit for.
So ‘ageism’ is okay because a gang of human trafficking rapists put it in a document 250 years ago? If they had included a maximum to along along with the minimums, would that be hunky dory?
What does that even mean in this context? If I decide I’m not voting for a candidate because he/she is too old, am I going to be arrested? Can that candidate sue me for violating his civil rights by not voting for him?
I post that there are age minimums in the Constitution, and your response is to say there are age minimums in the Constitution!?!?
I post that members of congress who’s own staff admit they are no longer mentally competent to serve in office should be removed from office, and your response is to post a cite and say that wouldn’t be Constitutional. Your own cite lays out the methods for removing people from office who can no longer serve. So it is obviously constitutional. Your own cite proves it is.
No, it doesn’t. Nowhere in the Constitution does it restrict enacting age maximums. Even in Article III for the Supreme Court, it only says they serve while they “hold their offices during good Behaviour.”)
I am not trying to be an asshole or to dunk on you. Are you perhaps dyslexic? I promise I rewrote this several times, trying to find a nicer way of putting things.
In terms of actually getting the job, I think I am coming around to your way of thinking that experience doesn’t matter that much. From the getting elected perspective, I think the primary thing experience does is get your name out there and make you a known commodity. AOC is already excellent at that, so I don’t know that it does that much for her.
I’ve been saying this since the late nineties: people want to vote for an exciting candidate. They want someone who says big bold things that paint a picture for them and are also tied to specific proposals. The Contract with America was absolute shit, but it was big bold proposals that painted a Norman Rockwell picture and was tied to specific policy proposals. Obama ran on a big bold campaign with soaring rhetoric and also a four-point plan for modernizing healthcare in our country. Trump ran on a terrible fucking platform of big bold ideas tied to specific (and completely unrealistic) policy proposals.
AOC has the possibility to run on big bold things tied to specific policy proposals. She’s not minced her words yet, she hasn’t lapsed into pabulum yet, and I hope she’ll run and maintain that energy.
They’re a tricksy group. On the one hand, they don’t vote much. On the other hand, if you can get them excited, they might be enough to swing the election. There are a lot of them, and moving a significant chunk from “not voting” to “voting for the Dem” would be huge. Fogeys like us are reliable voters; we’ll even vote for people we’re not particularly excited for, because the world has beaten us down and torn away all our dreams.
Some posters want to make it so anyone over 70 can not run for public office. You can vote for whoever you like.
Moderating:
This will probably not please anyone, but the back and forth on ageism is absolutely dragging the thread off topic. The age of a possible Democratic presidential nomination is on-topic because health, longevity in position, and possible cognitive will be debated by supporters or enemies of the candidate.
The general debate on the morality, legality, or other concerns is off-topic, take it to another thread, or spin one off as you wish.
How to Reply as a linked Topic
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
Since there wasn’t any prior moderation on the drift, I’m not issuing warnings for hijacks, but with the above instruction, future repeats need to be avoided.
I will also note that several of the posts were quite heated, and approaching attacking the poster not the post. I think they’re barely within the bounds of behavior, but too many come close. So a reminder to all, attack the contents of the post, do not attack the poster inthread, even if you strongly disagree, take those comments to the Pit.
The thread is re-opened.
Right now that age is a reasonable proxy for the Gen X/Millennial transition. Basically all it says is that she gets support from her generation and younger.
Point taken, though “smoked” may be a tad overstated. Obama did better than the election-eve polls were suggesting (Romney’s election-day analytics fiasco didn’t help), but he was still 33 electoral college votes and 3.5 million popular votes below 2008.
My point — insofar as I had one — however was that for much of the 2008 cycle the Smear Machine was focused on Hillary Clinton, the heir presumptive of the Clinton dynasty. When Obama emerged as the actual candidate, they had to scramble for dirt. In the end, they resorted to things like “He’s just a community organizer!”, “His one time pastor hates America!”, and “He and his wife trade terrorist fist jabs!”. AOC, on the other hand, has been unusually forthright (for a politician) about her outlook and objectives, all of which provides grist for the smear mill. As noted, she energizes both sides of the electorate; my concern is that in the current political environment, where the axiom that people vote against the candidate they don’t want rather than for the one they do seems especially prevalent, her candidacy would do more to bring out the wrong side.
While I admit that I’m not as familiar with AOC as I might be, what I do know I find appealing. I’m old enough to remember JFK, and while the details are different the overall vibe feels similar. But JFK lived and campaigned in a far more sedate political climate (“doldrums” comes to mind), while the current climate is outright poisonous. Also as noted, she has a bully pulpit where she is and can afford to wait another cycle or two to see if even a slight modicum of sanity takes hold. If it does, her chances would be much better.
(The above, of course, is IMO. And subject to reality checking.)
From the polling I’ve seen, AOC is one of the very rare US politicians currently in the “positive” overall – i.e. more Americans like her than dislike her (and it’s not very close – if I’m reading the below correctly, she’s currently +13):
If that polling is accurate, then Republican negative messaging about her has so far failed to take hold nationally.
She certainly could wait, just like Obama could have waited. But smart politicians will strike while the iron is hot… and maybe the iron is getting hot for her. We’ll see.