Senior class politics

Much has been made of how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would both be historic firsts as president. But so would John McCain: he’d be the oldest president ever inaugurated for a first term. McCain boosters, understandably, don’t shout about this from the roof tops. But there is reason to think based on the Republican primaries that he has special appeal to elderly voters in the way that Obama does to African-Americans and Clinton to women even if the effect is less pronounced in McCain's case.

McCain’s support among seniors might well grow in a general election match up with Obama. As Jonathan Alter points out in Newsweek, the age gap between the two of them would be the largest ever between the two major party nominees in a presidential election and given the youth triumphalism that there is on the periphery of the Obama campaign it is easy to imagine elderly voters gravitating towards McCain.

Encouragingly for the Republicans, four of the five states with the highest proportions of seniors are swing states. McCain’s age might turn out not to be a handicap but a crucial boon to his candidacy. See more of James Forsyth