Television viewers in 1984 were treated to one of the most memorable and brilliantly witty moments in presidential debate history.
John Balentine, a former managing editor for the Lakes Region Weekly, lives in Windham.
Responding to a question from Baltimore Sun correspondent Henry Trewhitt regarding whether he was too old and feeble to run the country at age 73, incumbent President Ronald Reagan answered: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Even Reagan’s Democrat opponent Walter Mondale had to laugh when the great actor and statesman offered up his clever and tide-turning response that removed all notions that Reagan was over the hill.
Almost 40 years after Reagan gave his famous response, age is once again coming up as a electoral factor, this time here in Maine in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan Collins, 67, and her 48-year-old Democrat challenger, Sara Gideon.
Considering the relentless attack ads by Gideon that spotlight Collins’ advancing age and appearance, it’s time Collins does or says something that calls out Gideon’s blatant ageism intimating that Collins is too old to be an effective senator.
Months ago, Gideon began running an ad featuring retouched photographs of an altered – and physically grotesque – Susan Collins with severely splotchy skin. The disturbing ad was groundbreaking for weaponizing age in the senatorial race and setting the tone for a Gideon campaign that has systematically focused on Collins’ advancing age.
Many of Gideon’s campaign commercials show clips of Collins as a younger senator and then quickly fast-forward to the present day. Most of the ads make Collins look awful with high contrast meant to accentuate Collins’ every facial blemish.
The ads always come to the same conclusion. After showing us how old Collins has gotten and how tired she looks – compared with her perky, pretty former 1990s-era self – the narrator comes on to tell us Collins has changed and that “she’s not for you anymore.”
It’s a dirty way to run a campaign and reveals Gideon’s political foolishness since the intended audience, the oldest electorate in the nation, is also aging and probably doesn’t appreciate age-based discrimination.
While it’s awful the long-serving and widely admired Collins is having to suffer attacks based on little more than her appearance, it’s more surprising that Gideon, a woman herself, is the culprit. Especially in the age of #MeToo, if a man attacked Collins in a similar way, Democrat women everywhere would demand an apology.
Gideon may be correct that Collins’ youth is gone – although she ambles nimbly alongside her dog in one of her latest commercials, perhaps as an overt response to Gideon’s ageist tactics – but youthful appearance is hardly a requirement of the Senate or any political office where acquired wisdom is of utmost importance. Collins is a battle-tested, 24-year veteran of Congress, which makes her a better and more influential representative for Mainers.
We all remember how Reagan, who was known for both style and substance, was politically savvy and wise in his response to Trewhitt’s question regarding his age. But while many remember the first part of his response, few remember the final kicker:
“I might add, Mr. Trewhitt, that it was Seneca, or was it Cicero, that said, ‘If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.’”
Gideon, who is playing the age card this election season against Collins at her own peril, should learn from Reagan’s age-old wisdom.
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