The questions about Biden's age and fitness are reminiscent of another campaign: Reagan's in 1984
The Peninsula
The age question for presidential candidates is more than four decades old. President Ronald Reagan answered it with a pledge to resign if he became i...
The age question for presidential candidates is more than four decades old. President Ronald Reagan answered it with a pledge to resign if he became impaired, and later with a clever joke that reset his campaign from a stumbling debate performance to a 49-state landslide and a second term.
"I will not make age an issue of this campaign," Reagan said to the question he knew was coming in perhaps the most famous mic-drop moment in campaign history. "I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience."
The audience roared, even Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale laughed - and Reagan's reelection was back on track.
Today, Democratic President Joe Biden, 81, is struggling for such a redemptive moment after a disastrous debate performance against Republican former president Donald Trump, 78. Those 90 minutes last week set off alarms among Democrats hoping Biden would keep Trump from returning to the White House - and heightened concern among voters long skeptical of how either elderly man would govern a complex nation of more than 330 million people for four more years.
More than two dozen people who have spent time with the president privately described him as often sharp and focused. But he also has moments, particularly later in the evening, when his thoughts seem jumbled and he trails off mid-sentence or seems confused, they said. Sometimes he doesn’t grasp the finer points of policy details. He occasionally forgets people’s names, stares blankly and moves slowly around the room, they said.