IS AGE AN ISSUE IN THE 2008 AMERICAN ELECTIONS?

Is senator McCain too old to be president?

Many democrats think and even claim that the 71- year-old senator from Arizona is too old to lead America.They claim that he is "confused" and has "lost his bearings" or is "out of touch."

The McCain campaign are convinced that Democrats are using those terms to exploit concerns that the presumptive Republican nominee is too old to effectively serve as president.But given the fact that if elected he will the oldest man to be elected as a president in the US, the senator on his part tends to answer questions about his age by saying "its not important".

The age issue first found its way into the campaign trail back in May when senator Barack Obama argued in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that McCain had "lost his bearings" while pursuing the Republican nomination.

The McCain campaign immediately responded by claiming that Obama's use of that phrase was "a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue."

Last wenesday ,the issue reemerged when McCain appeared on NBC's "Today" Show and argued, as he has before, that "it's not important" when troops return from Iraq as long as casualties are held to a minimum.

Quickly responding to McCain's words,senator John Kerry, an Obama supporter said senator McCain is "unbelievably out of touch" and that it "is really becoming more crystal clear that John McCain simply doesn't understand the conflict. He confuses who Iran is training, he confuses what the makeup of al Qaeda is, and he confuses the history of what has happened between Sunni and Shia."

Susan Rice, one of Obama 's top foreign policy advisers, said that McCain had demonstrated a "pattern of confusing the basic facts and reality that pertain to Iraq."
When asked if he was trying to highlight the age issue through his choice of words,senotor John Kerry said it was "unfair" and "ridiculous" to make such an assertion. While,Rice said she was simply highlighting the fact that, in her opinion, McCain has his facts wrong.

For its part, the McCain camp says Obama is the one who is confused.

But whether or not the Democrats are playing word games, it is abundantly clear that, for many voters, McCain's age is a real concern.

Nearly one-third of respondents in most recent national polls say that McCain's age could impede his ability to effectively govern the nation.

The importance of the age question may be magnified this time around because it threatens to sap McCain's support with one of his most critical constituencies: older Americans.

Recent polls show that voters of age 65 and older currently support senator McCain over senator Obama by 8points margin(51%-43%). Unfortunately for McCain, however, older voters also tend to worry more about the age issue than other voters.However,for younger voters age is an abstraction.

But given the fact that Older Americans are a group that, percentagewise, almost always turns out to vote more heavily than the electorate as a whole. McCain will need them firmly in his way on Election Day.

Furthermore,Adding to McCain's age problem is the fact that, due to his war-related injuries, he walks with a stiff gait. Fairly or unfairly, he doesn't always give the appearance of energy and vigor that voters tend to seek in a president.

However,It remains to be seen whether McCain's age will prove to be an insurmountable obstacle for voters come on November. The senator's defenders can certainly point to strong historical precedents of older leaders who served effectively in the past.