There will be plenty of reasons to vote against Hillary in 2016, but her older age is not one of them.
Brain injury or not, the relationship between aging and health as a factor in Hillary's decision to run (and if she is successful, how well she might govern) is legitimate, though probably for exactly the opposite reasons most assume. Just about 75 at the end of a first term would put her roughly at the midpoint of the extra 30 years of life our 20th century miracle of longevity has now made the norm in our 21st century.
And like so many other facts of Hillary's public life -- a woman at the dawn of the feminist movement, a "co-president," fidelity in the White House during an era of fishbowl politics -- the "age thing" could serve a useful catalyst to cause us to rethink and reconsider what it means to get old in America and the world. We live in a time when, as Dr. Sarah Harper of Oxford's Institute on Ageing allowed, a young girl born in the 1990s is likely to see three centuries.
The questions that swirl around the age of a candidate for public office, particularly POTUS, is not inconsequential, and in light of Hillary's impending candidacy, could push us toward a national dialogue on what we think about aging and work in 21st century America -- in a good way. Consider:
- While aging and health are correlated, in our 21st century we can for the first time in history decouple the aging process from health as a barrier to engagement, activity, work and leadership. This is especially true if we redefine what we mean by old in the aging process. If we are living more healthy to 90 as a matter of course, how is it conceivable that at 60, 70 or 80, we are assigned to a set of roles that equate more with bingo, golf or rocking chairs than just another phase of work and engagement? Moreover, given that on the other side of the equation -- stunningly low birth rates leading to a profound shift in proportion of young to old across the globe -- there will be more of us over 60 than in 20th century working age definitions.
Aging in America as around the globe has taken a new meaning in 21st century life. Embedding the Upside of Aging into the fabric of our institutions - government, business, education and community -- is essential and the measure of success will not be when we treat older Americans in any special way, but when the fact of their age is the less relevant than their knowledge, experience, wisdom or leadership capabilities.