![\"\"](\"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Untitled-14-300x180.png\")
International Desk: US President-elect Joe Biden turned 78 on Friday. In two months, he\u2019ll take the reins of a politically fractured nation facing the worst public health crisis in a century, high unemployment and a reckoning on racial injustice.<\/p>\n
As he wrestles with those issues, Biden will be attempting to accomplish another feat: demonstrate to Americans that age is but a number and he\u2019s up to the job.<\/p>\n
Biden will be sworn in as the oldest president in the nation\u2019s history, displacing Ronald Reagan, who left the White House in 1989 when he was 77 years and 349 days old.
\nThe age and health of both Biden and President Donald Trump — less than four years Biden\u2019s junior \u2014 loomed throughout a race that was decided by a younger and more diverse electorate and at a moment when the nation is facing no shortage of issues of consequence.
\nOut of the gate, Biden will be keen to demonstrate he\u2019s got the vigor to serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s crucial that he and his staff put himself in the position early in his presidency where he can express what he wants with a crispness that\u2019s not always been his strength,\u201d said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University who has advised legislators from both parties. \u201cHe has got to build up credibility with the American people that he\u2019s physically and mentally up to the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout the campaign, Trump, 74, didn\u2019t miss a chance to highlight Biden\u2019s gaffes and argue that the Democrat lacked the mental acuity to lead the nation. Both critics and some backers of Biden worried that he was sending the wrong message about his stamina by keeping a relatively light public schedule while Trump barnstormed battleground states. Biden attributed his light schedule to being cautious during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
Some of Biden\u2019s rivals in the Democratic primary also made a case on age — while skipping Trump\u2019s vitriol — by raising the question of whether someone of Biden\u2019s and Trump\u2019s generation was the right person to lead a nation dealing with issues like climate change and racial inequality.<\/p>\n
Brian Ott, a Missouri State University communications professor who studies presidential rhetoric, said Biden was hardly impressive as a campaigner, but has proven far more effective with his public remarks since Election Day.<\/p>\n
Ott said Biden\u2019s victory speech was poignant, and his empathy showed in a virtual discussion that he held earlier this week with frontline healthcare workers. The president-elect\u2019s experience — a combination of age and nearly 50 years in politics — conveys more clearly through the prism of governing than the chaos of campaigning, he said.
\n\u201cThe rhetoric of governing, unlike the rhetoric of campaigning, is collaborative rather than adversarial,\u201d Ott said.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s relatively advanced age also puts a greater premium on the quality of his staff, Baker said. His choice of Sen. Kamala Harris, nearly 20 years younger than him, as his running mate effectively acknowledged his age issue. Biden has described himself as a transitional president but hasn\u2019t ruled out running for a second term.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s well served in making it known from Day One that she\u2019s ready to go,\u201d Baker said of Harris. \u201cShe\u2019s got to be in the images coming out of the White House. They also need to, in terms of their messaging, highlight her inclusion in whatever the important issue or debate is going on in the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden, in a September interview with CNN, promised to be \u201ctotally transparent\u201d about all facets of his health if elected but he hasn\u2019t said how he\u2019ll do that.<\/p>\n
The campaign has made the case that Biden isn\u2019t your average septuagenarian.<\/p>\n
His physician, Dr. Kevin O\u2019Connor, in a medical report released by the campaign in December, described Biden as \u201chealthy, vigorous … fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor reported that Biden works out five days a week. The president-elect told supporters that during the pandemic he has relied on home workouts involving a Peloton bike, treadmill and weights.<\/p>\n
In 1988, Biden suffered two life-threatening brain aneurysms, an experience that he wrote in his memoir shaped him into the \u201ckind of man I want to be.\u201d O\u2019Connor also noted in his report that Biden has an irregular heartbeat, but it has not required any medication or other treatment. He also had his gall bladder removed in 2003.<\/p>\n
A September article by a group of researchers in the Journal on Active Aging concluded that both Biden and Trump are \u201csuper-agers\u201d and are likely to outlive their American contemporaries and maintain their health beyond the end of the next presidential term.<\/p>\n
Some of Biden\u2019s White House predecessors left behind breadcrumbs about the dos and don\u2019ts of demonstrating presidential vigor, said Edward Frantz, a presidential historian at the University of Indianapolis.<\/p>\n
Reagan made sure the public saw him chopping wood and riding horses. Trump, after being diagnosed with the coronavirus, quickly returned to a busy campaign schedule — holding dozens of crowded rallies in battleground states in the final weeks of the campaign. Those events flouted coronavirus guidelines on social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings.<\/p>\n
In 1841, William Harrison, 68, attempted to show off his vigor by delivering a lengthy inaugural address without a coat or hat. Weeks later, Harrison, then the oldest president elected in U.S. history, developed a cold that turned into pneumonia that would kill him just a month into his presidency. It\u2019s disputed whether Harrison\u2019s illness was related to his inaugural address.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International Desk: US President-elect Joe Biden turned 78 on Friday. In two months, he\u2019ll take the reins of a politically fractured nation facing the worst public health crisis in a century, high unemployment and a reckoning on racial injustice. As he wrestles with those issues, Biden will be attempting to accomplish another feat: demonstrate to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":64170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n