McCain’s age may figure in choice of a running mate

Some suggested McCain might want to tap a younger running mate to balance the ticket, particularly if he were to face a young opponent like Obama, 46. Others said his age would simply heighten his need to choose somebody whom voters would feel comfortable with as president should anything happen to him. (Not to be morbid, but eight vice presidents have succeeded presidents who died in office.)

McCain said in a recent interview that he had not even settled on how the vice presidential selection process would work, let alone whom it might select, but added, “We all know that the highest priority is someone who can take your place.” The potential import of McCain’s choice of a running mate has prompted a political parlor game of who would be the best fit for the ticket. Quite a few of the names being bandied about are those of politicians in their 40s and 50s, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, 47; Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, 51, whose well-timed endorsement helped McCain win the crucial swing-state’s primary; Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, 47; and Rob Portman, 52, a former Ohio congressman and director of the Office of Management and Budget.

McCain’s advisers say the campaign has yet to discuss vice presidential prospects. “We haven’t spent one second talking about the selection of a running mate, and, as you know, he’s superstitious, so I doubt we will talk about it for a while,” said Charlie Black, a veteran of many Republican presidential campaigns. Asked about the age factor, he drew on his past campaign experience for an analogy of how it might weigh in the selection.

“Reagan had a quote ‘age’ issue in 1980,” Black said. “It wouldn’t go away until the day he picked George Bush as Vice President. And then people said, well, here’s a known quantity, the guy has experience, including international experience, and, yeah, he could handle it.”

The subject of McCain’s age has come up, gingerly, on the campaign trail. When one of Mike Huckabee’s biggest supporters, Chuck Norris, 67, said after the South Carolina primary that he did not think McCain would have “the stamina to run the country for four years,” McCain responded with a crack that highlighted his gene pool. “I’m afraid that I may have to send my 95-year-old mother to wash Chuck’s mouth out with soap,” he said.

Obama seemed to call attention to McCain’s age with a bit more subtlety, telling a crowd this month, “Listen, I respect John McCain for his half-century of service to this country.” Obama has since dropped the “half-century” reference from similar lines. But he has drawn the distinction in other ways, as he did on Tuesday in his speech after winning the Wisconsin primary when he said of McCain: “He represents the policies of yesterday. And we want to be the party of tomorrow.” McCain, in his own speeches, frequently points to his experience. “My friends, I’m not the youngest candidate,” McCain said after winning the Wisconsin primary, “but I am the most experienced.” On the trail McCain has shown his vigor by keeping a punishing schedule that sometimes tired followers less than half his age. But he does have white hair, scars from a bout with melanoma and limited flexibility from the injuries he sustained as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. And the fact remains that by the end of a second McCain term, he would be in his 80s.