Oldest New President Ever

John McCain had a senior moment in Texas the other day. “I’m a proud conservative liberal Republican,” he said in a speech, then catching himself up, “conservative Republican. Hello? Easy there. Let me say this: I am a proud conservative Republican...”

If he wins in November, John McCain will be 72, three years older than Ronald Reagan was when elected--in his own description, "older than dirt, with more scars than Frankenstein." A Gallup Poll shows voters are worried about that.

As his senior by a dozen years, I am duty-bound to offer advice and encouragement. "Old age is a shipwreck," Charles de Gaulle once famously said, but he wasn't talking about himself. He was president of France until he passed 88 and was forced out of office for trying to marginalize the Senate that was blocking his iron whims.

New research shows that age is not disabling if you stay active, and since he got out of that Vietnamese prison, nobody has accused John McCain of being sedentary.

Moreover, another study finds that, contrary to the belief that older people are more “set in their ways,” individuals age 60 and older change their attitudes on controversial issues more significantly than people under 40. McCain himself has been living proof of that in the past year, outdone only by Mitt Romney.

So here's to the septuagenarian Senator. I won't be one of them, but grumpy old voters may come out in force for him next November--if the weather isn't too bad.