Here in South Carolina, just over five years ago, the then-79-year-old Democratic kingmaker Clyburn handed the then-77-year-old Joe Biden his much sought-after presidential endorsement. If not the White House, his earlier selections, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have all been nominated by the party.
Many believe that Clyburn’s support of Biden helps the former vice-president win South Carolina’s primary and turn the tide in his faltering campaign. Since then, Democrats have had to reconsider their decision for the aging Biden – who unwillingly dropped his re-election campaign last year amid a growing cacophony of questions regarding his competency.
Many questioned if he had hung on too long after his successor, Vice-President Kamala Harris, lost to Donald Trump. Then last month Biden revealed he had stage 4 prostate cancer, a disease with a terrible outlook that would have caused a national catastrophe should he have been able to win reelection.
“We have a geriatric issue,” Ashley McIntyre Stewart remarked, especially pointing to the current House expenditure bill. “We have to get the younger population involved so we avoid having the Republicans railroad us.”
More than half of the thirty Democrats in the House over age 75 intend to run for re-election next year, according to a survey last month by Axios; Clyburn’s term would expire when he is 88 should he win.
Saying his grandchildren and children wouldn’t care about Biden’s decision, he also bristled at the second-guessing over whether he should have moved aside earlier.
“They’re going to ask me what did you do to make sure I got a better life?” he added. “That’s all I am focused on.”
Democratic voters have prioritized governing expertise above young and vibrancy, so accepting the hazards involved with selecting older officials to power. Only two Democratic incumbents in Congress lost their party’s nomination in 2024; both, Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York, were relative newcomers under the age of 50.
Republicans also have their own slate of aging leaders, including the 78-year-old president. But the electoral assault of 2020 and Biden’s health disclosures have some people reflecting.
Visiting South Carolina, Chicago Democrat William Godwin stopped at the fish fry to see Clyburn and hear from the two Democratic governors, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Wes Moore of Maryland, invited to speak. He said his party needs a youth movement even while he admired the expertise of seasoned politicians like Clyburn and Biden.
“We’re about to send a message the entire country is going to hear,” he remarked. “This is our time.” Our moment comes here. We will not blink; we will not flinch; we will not shuck. We will triumph, as those who preceded us did.”
Although Democrats may have prevailed in the past, last year’s loss was especially painful. Trump’s first months back in office have left the party in a deep hole with years’ worth of work to rebuild Democrat-backed government programs and restore worker rolls slashed by the Republicans.
“I assigned Donald Trump credit for this,” Waltz remarked. “He moves so quickly and so fast for bad things, we better be ready to move quickly and fast for good things.”
Democrats must have “tough conversations” about how to win back the folks who turned to Trump last year, Waltz said.
South Carolina will once more be a key battlefield in the contest for the Democratic presidential nominee in a few years. The conversations will help to define the type of candidate who emerges victorious in part by addressing how to strike a balance between age and experience with youth and energy – occurring at this fish fry and in other Democratic events all throughout the nation in the days ahead.
