Voting old, elderly, codgers to high office...............

Great Debates
1

I noticed that Daniel Inouye is running for re-election as the senior Senator of the state of Hawaii.

The guy is 86 years old! He was first elected to the Senate in the Nov. 1962 elections and became a senator in 1963. To put this in perspective, Bill and Hill Clinton and George W. were in high school and was the year of Obama’s birth. Sarah Palin wasn’t born until the next year. Obama is Inoyue’s 10th administration he’s worked under. That’s amazing.

I think Ted Kennedy would have stayed and would of ran for re-election again if he was of good health and obviously did not die. The man stayed at the job until he was just physically unable to do it anymore. Of course, he probably realized that he was the last of the Kennedy legacy and all that, but if I was given 6 months to live, someone else can take my place.

My question is, what makes people liken Strom Thurmond, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy and some others want to keep being a US Senator until they die or get so feeble that they physically cannot do the job anymore? I am sure it is a cool job in many respects with much prestige, but I also think that after a time, it would be tiring having to put up with lobbyists, politicing, dealing with constituents, basically keeping your state happy with you back home (basically shilling for government funds like Robert Byrd did in West Virginia.), and then having raise money to campaign. Seems like a stessful position in many ways. Not to mention, it is a job that requires you to do shit like sit on committees, doing floor votes, doing polling, read laws, be knowledgable about the constitution, etc. I am sure it can be quite involved.

I would think that most elderly people, especially someone who is their mid 70’s who has had a successful career like that to want to retire and do other things. However, I think that probably a lot of elderly people who can work and enjoy their work do, because they feel that if they relax, that they will die. Joe Paterno, who is the head football coach of Penn State is 83 and has been at his job since 1966. I think the Penn State alumni and students love this man so much that he can keep the job until he drops dead, with JoPa not wanting to go. I think this is what drives these old codger senators, I want to stay, it’s fun, I have a lot of power.

What’s your opinion?

2

The dirty little secret is that the Senators over 80 don’t do much work. There is a lot of sleeping during committee meetings and having their staff do all their work short of voting and appearing in front of the cameras. A senator stays in office until he dies because they don’t want to let go of the power and the voters keep electing them because the seniority system brings in more money to the state than a younger senator could.

3

Robert Byrd used to say he served with presidents, not under them. :wink:

I think you got it in the next sentence - primarily it’s the prestige. Roland Burris accepted a tainted appointment to the Senate almost solely so he could put it on his tombstone. And there’s pride, too. They don’t want to admit they’re getting old or can’t hack it anymore. Maybe a few are like Joe Paterno at Penn State and think the work itself is keeping them alive. For that matter they may not have that much else to do with their time.

By the time you’ve been in the Senate for that long I don’t think you have to work that hard to raise money. And the truth is that whether they’re old or young, Senators are very scheduled. Even when they’re on the Senate floor, they don’t do very much that is not scripted and arranged by their aides. I’m sure the job is a lot easier when you have a staff so much of the work for you, and if you’ve been there for four or five or eight terms, your staff already knows what to do because they’ve been trained by your previous staffers.

[I swear I mentioned Paterno in my reply before I saw you also brought him up.]
There are people at Penn State who were ready for Paterno to leave ten years ago, when the program stopped being a national powerhouse. The team recovered after a few down seasons, but if it hadn’t, he would have been pushed aside the way Bobby Bowden was at Florida State. Aside from his love for coaching, Paterno is still at Penn State because he thinks he’ll die if he retires. I’m not kidding. When people ask him about retirement he’s apt to bring up Bear Bryant, who retired at the end of Alabama’s season in 1982 and died four days later. He thinks he needs coaching as a reason to live and that he’ll keel over without it. It’s hard to make a guy retire when he thinks retirement equals death.

4

What other job is there where you can keep you pay check and PERKS and only do work when you want to? In my opion this is the problem with the seniority system in congress, and voters. Because they can bring home the bucks to the state it does not matter the damage that they cause the country. I am infavor of term limits.

5

My grandmother kept her job as a secretary at a law firm until she was almost 90 and they more or less made her retire. And she had plenty of savings and owned her apartment, so it wasn’t like she needed the money. Similarily, there’s a retired professor that is in his 90’s and can barely walk that kept his office in the building I work and still comes in for a full work day every day, so far as I can tell just to hang out.

Some people just aren’t sure what they’d do with themselves if they were to retire. And as others said, the Senate has the added incentive that you don’t actually need to do much actual work if you don’t want to (or physically can’t) and your still treated as valuable by voters since your seniority gives more power to their state.

6

Moved to Great Debates from the 2010 U.S. Elections forum. I know Daniel Inouye is up for re-election this year, but this thread is more about the general issue of elderly politicians than it is about him or anything specific to the current electoral cycle.

7

I vaguely remember being a little kid and hearing about things like a “Senate race” or a candidate “running for President,” and picturing a literal race. Maybe actual running should be involved, to weed out the elderly codgers. :slight_smile:

8

It’s iironic, really, that in Britain it’s called standing for Parliament, because British pols are typically younger and fitter.

9

The better question is, why do people vote for them?

I think people are generally satisfied with their representatives if they do the job that they were elected to do. Senator Byrd, for example, continued to bring the pork back to West Virginia well after his 2006 reelection at age 89 or so. Did he do the job the same way as he did when he was 79, 69, or even 59? Of course not. But he seemed to be in reasonably good health and he was still getting results.

Bill Roth, however, lost reelection at age 79. His health problems were arguably more severe, but the people of Delaware seemed to think he wasn’t up to the job.

Shoot, and I should have mentioned Tim Johnson. He suffered a serious stroke in 2006, which greatly effected his mobility. And yet, he was reelected in 2008 quite handily, despite his dependence on a wheelchair and his slurred speech. Should Johnson not have been allowed to run for office? Or isn’t the question of his fitness best answered by the voters?

10

Well, if nothing else, it helps keep Social Security solvent, right?

11

In some countries there is respect for the elderly. In America we call them codgers and resent them. The storehouse of knowledge and experience means nothing here. But in politics, seniority gets you more important committees . Tossing guys out because they are old is self destructive. They have large staffs to do most of the work.

12

Well, you would say that. You’re old.

13

Some geezer-on-the-street on a Sunday morning show summed it up nicely: Why trade in one of the most powerful men in the country for a guy who can’t find his ass with both his hands?

14

The really scary part is that the President pro term of the Senate is 3rd in line for the Presidency and it’s always filled by the most senior senator of the majority party. So in the even of a major attack on the US that wipes out the President, VP, & House Speaker we wind up with an octogenerian President.

15

That of course would have nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.