From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying
Two friends: one is a congressman and one is a state senator. The congressman started off pretty conservative in the state legislature and got more and more progressive over the years. But the time he ran for Congress, he was on the right side of pretty much every issue. At his events, though, he sometimes introduces me as the guy who keeps him on the progressive path. I guess I have to have an uncomfortable talk with him about Gaza and genocide. The other friend I’ve known since he was still basically a kid. Now he’s a state senator with a lot of seniority. He was as progressive as someone can be when I first met him… and he’s gotten even more progressive with time. Yesterday we caught up on the phone and when I told him I’d be celebrating my 76th birthday next week he wanted to know what it felt like being so old and how things are changing.
I told him the problems I sometimes have with memories— especially since I’m writing a memoir— and how sometimes I struggle finding a word I need, like it’s on the tip of my tongue but it takes a minute to get it. If you read DWT with any regularity, you’ve probably noticed I need an editor to correct a lot more typos than I hate 2 decades ago when I started the blog. And I talked about how I’m less of the idiot-savant I’ve always been… well, not really an idiot, but more a savant. When I worked in the music business, I knew the format, address and staff of every radio station playing rock music in the country. Also I was once voted the best dj in San Francisco by the readers of one of the weekly newspapers. I didn’t have to struggle to know what record came next. I knew every record. Now I don’t know shit— no radio stations and fewer and fewer records.
And after I retired from the music business my idiot-savantitude drifted over the politics. Eventually I could name every member of Congress, what the characteristics of their district were (from PVI to cities and counties, etc) and to what caucuses and committees they were part of. That ability is fading too, although I wonder if it’s because that info is so easy to find online that I don’t exercise that bit of brain muscle.
In fact I remember that the last time I bought a car, I told the salesman I didn’t want the built in GPS navigation system. I thought it would destroy my ability to find places on my own, just the way technology has destroyed my ability to remember my friends’ phone numbers. I also thought not having the navigation system would save me some money. It actually cost me money to have them remove it! Anyway I think it’s either use it or lose it with brain power… and that’s why I can’t tell you what the partisan lean is for every district anymore; it’s so easy to find online.
My friend the state senator was very kind when I told him how my memory was rotting away. He had mentioned a former member of his state’s legislature and I immediately named the city he represented. He was surprised I knew that. “What a memory!” He also said that now I’m coming down to where the rest of humanity is. How nice is that!! But I’ll never be a dj again and I know it takes me a lot longer to finish a post than it used it. And that memoir… oy. The other day, I wrote a piece about a couple of trips to Sri Lanka and it took me almost 3 days to get all my memories straight.
One thing I do recall from back in those days was how Reagan struggled putting on a show of being what he used to be. I mean sometimes he couldn’t remember his name. He was 77 in January of 1989 when he left office. He seemed ancient and he was suffering from Alzheimers and could barely function. Whether it’s Trump or it’s Biden who is inaugurated in 2025, we’re going to have a president older than Reagan was when he left office— Trump, who already seems severely debilitated, and dangerously so, at 78 or Biden at 82.
Yesterday, Rich Jaroslovsky asked “How old is too old?” in his Atlantic essay The Other Time America Panicked Over A President’s Age. He noted that the age thing plaguing Biden and Trump now “isn’t the first time the question has dominated a presidential race. For a brief moment, 40 years ago, the country could talk of nothing else.” And Jaroslovsky, the Wall Street Journal’s White House correspondent at the time, was one of the reasons. The economy was booming and it looked like Reagan was headed for an easy reelection, something the commercial media hates, since the lack of drama and excitement and anguish is bad for sales. He asked pollster Burns “Bud” Roper if there was “any chance he could lose?”
Jaroslovsky recalled how Roper told him “he hadn’t found anything that could stop Reagan. Then he paused. ‘Actually, there is one thing,’ he added. ‘People won’t say it if you ask them directly, but when you look deeply at the numbers, a lot of them are concerned about his age.’ Reagan was 73 at the time. Four years earlier, Reagan’s age had been a major theme of the Republican primaries; he was sworn in only a few days before his 70th birthday, making him the oldest person ever to become president. Now he was four years older, having survived a near-fatal shooting in the interim, yet the issue of his age was scarcely discussed. Bud’s theory was that many voters had concerns about Reagan’s age wedged in the back of their minds, even if they wouldn’t admit it. The only thing Reagan had to fear, Bud thought, was some triggering event that would bring those concerns to the fore. ‘This guy can’t even afford a bad cold between now and Election Day,’ he said.
He and another reporter got to work on the story. “I spoke with management experts, psychologists, and gerontologists,” he wrote; “Jim spoke with political experts and pollsters. Eventually, I produced a draft we were happy with, though I was still struggling with the first paragraph. I wanted three facts to illustrate how long Reagan had been around, but I had only two: When Reagan was born, in 1911, William Howard Taft was president, and the American flag had only 46 stars. Jim, watching me agonize, ambled off to the part of the office where we kept various reference books, and returned a few minutes later. ‘Windshields,’ he announced, ‘were beginning to show up as standard equipment on automobiles.’ We had our lead.
On Friday, October 5, we submitted the draft to our editors in New York, who said they’d try to run it in the next week or so.
Two days later was the first presidential debate between Reagan and his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Walter Mondale. Debates had always been a comfortable venue for the old actor, providing some of the most memorable moments of his political career, including his famous question to Americans during his 1980 face-off with Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” This debate was different. Reagan stumbled, rambled, and blew his closing statement. No one had ever seen a public performance from him like this.
The next morning, nearly all the news coverage acknowledged that Mondale had won. But there was little discussion of why. Jim and I arrived at the office with the same thought: The story has to run tonight. Our editor in New York agreed.
After we added a reference to Reagan’s debate performance and a couple of quotes, the article ran under the headline “New Question in Race: Is Oldest U.S. President Now Showing His Age?” What followed were the most interesting two weeks of the campaign— perhaps the only interesting two weeks of the campaign.
The story led the evening network newscasts, at least one of which aired an illustration with a giant picture of The Journal’s front page. Our article was even referenced in the next morning’s New York Times, which must have pained their editors as much as it would have pained us had the roles been reversed.
Reagan’s lead in the polls narrowed as his age dominated the news cycle. At one point, I was interviewed on CNN by the anchor Bernard Shaw, who tried every which way to get me to say that the president was senile. I refused, because even if I thought he was— which I didn’t— I wasn’t damn fool enough to say so on national television. (Years later, I ran into Shaw at an airport. “I remember you,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You’re the guy who wouldn’t say Reagan was senile.”)
Why did our story break through? After all, everyone already knew how old he was. But his debate performance punctured voters’ willing suspension of disbelief. Our article gave voice to evidence that could no longer be ignored. That it appeared in The Journal— widely viewed as pro-Reagan because of its conservative opinion pages— only added to the impact.
Two weeks after the first debate came the second. The stakes felt much higher this time, but Reagan held his own. In anticipation of the inevitable question, he was armed with what became one of his most famous one-liners: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Less well remembered is the fact that Reagan began to sag as the debate wore on. This really was the effect of his age, I believe: After 90 minutes on his feet under the hot TV lights, the 73-year-old simply didn’t have the stamina of a younger man.
When it came time for his closing statement, Reagan began to ramble about driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, with no point or conclusion in sight. I was sitting in the audience next to Francis X. Clines, my New York Times counterpart, who grabbed my shoulder so tightly that I think I’ve still got the fingernail marks. “Rich, it’s happening again!” he hissed. Finally, the debate moderator, Edwin Newman, cut Reagan off because he’d used up his allocated time. I’ve always thought that, in that moment, Mondale missed his last, best opportunity to stay in the race. If only he’d had the presence of mind to say, “That’s okay, Mr. Newman, let him finish.” I think Reagan would still be driving down that highway.
After the debate, I stepped into an elevator and found myself surrounded by a number of Reagan’s aides. They had endured two weeks of recriminations from Reagan’s allies, and even from Nancy Reagan, for supposedly mishandling preparations for the previous debate. Now they were the most relieved-looking group of guys I’d ever seen. When we got to my floor, Chief of Staff James Baker clapped me on the back. “Well, Jaroslovsky, we took care of your issue,” he said, propelling me off the elevator with a friendly— or perhaps not-so-friendly— shove.
I’m still not sure what we saw in 1984. Was it, as I thought then, the natural effects of the progression of time? Or was it a precursor to Reagan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, which he announced to the world a decade later?
In any case, Reagan took care of the age issue that year. But if I had to guess, today’s two leading candidates won’t.
I ramble a lot too. Sometimes I wonder if my younger friends want to shut me up when I start going. Oh... and candidates too. I know they want to get the hell off the phone and talk to the next person on their list. I totally talk to much when I'm getting to know them. I notice that some of them-- especially the younger ones-- multi-task and don't pay close attention and then don't follow through... and wonder why they don't wind up getting endorsed. I mean, following through is pretty important for a legislator, don't you think?
And this photo... it literally just showed up on my phone. It was taken in India in December. I'm not positive where it was taken. I have it a couple of possibilities in mind-- the grounds around Humayan's tomb or maybe the grounds around Qutb Minar. Roland will remember. He has a photographic memory.
