K. Ward Cummings

In the winter of 1794, President George Washington was one year into his second term — and he was feeling his age. Twenty years in the country’s service had transformed the once virile figure most Americans remembered admiringly from the Revolution into a slow-moving, slow-talking, dried-up old man. A friend, recounting a recent visit with the president, described to a colleague how frail Washington had grown, his face “cadaverous” and his voice “thin and whispery.”

Washington had wanted to step down the year before, but the fledgling American republic might not have survived his departure. So, he soldiered on, years after he should have retired from public life.

Most voters understand from personal experience that physical and cognitive abilities diminish precipitously with advancing age and yet, in election after election, voters give aging political candidates the benefit of the doubt and elect them anyway.

Anyone doubting this need only recall that senators Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy, Judiciary Committee members who were at both the Brett Kavanaugh-Christine Blasey Ford hearing Thursday and the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearing in 1991, are 85, 84 and 78 years old, respectively. President Donald Trump, 72, most recently raised doubts Wednesday at a rambling, 81-minute news conference variously described in headlines as astonishing, outrageous, strange and wild.

How old is too old to run for office? We have all seen thetime-lapse photos of presidents that show the aging effects of the job on their physical features. Sometimes the signs are less obvious. President Ronald Reagan, for example, was 73 when he ran for re-election in 1984 despite showing signs of creeping cognitive decline.

In politics, there are many minimum age requirements for candidates — but maximum age does not exist. In California for instance, 85-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein is running for re-election. She would be 91 at the end of her next term. Meanwhile, in Florida, former Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala is running for an open House seat at age 77. If she wins, she will be welcomed in Washington by Democratic House leaders Nancy Pelosi, 78; Steny Hoyer, 79; and Jim Clyburn, 78.

If the make-up of political Washington is any indication, voters give little thought to age — that is, until it becomes a problem.

K. Ward Cummings is a former senior congressional adviser and the author of “Partner to Power: The Secret World of Presidents and their Most Trusted Advisers.” Follow him on Twitter: @kwardcummings. This was published first in USA Today.