Fossils fuel Democrats’ run of presidential candidates

For all the talk, it’s not how old the potential commanders-in-chief are, it’s how woeful.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Picture: Getty Images

People keep talking about how old everyone is, and by everyone, they mean all the viable Democratic Party candidates for US president.

They’re all so old, they’re practically ancient, they’re pretty much fossilised, and so on.

Funny, because how old they are isn’t actually that important. How bad they are is important.

But OK, since everyone else is on the topic, let’s talk about how old — and white, and male, and straight — they all are. Because for all the talk, they don’t really go in for woke, do they, these Democrats?

Joe Biden. Picture: AFP

Fun fact: at 77, Joe Biden is the youngest of the two rivals left who are vying to win.

We have to rule out Elizabeth Warren, who pulled out of the race on Friday. She came third on Super Tuesday in her home state of Massachusetts. It couldn’t be more woke, and she’s a progressive woman, but they went for the old white man first, and the other old white man second.

This is the soul of the party whence sprang JFK? And RFK, and Barack Obama? Apparently so.

Think on this: Biden and his main rival, Bernie Sanders, 78, are too old to even be Baby Boomers. They are not so much in the twilight­ as in the ­actuarial zone. And that’s fine.

Except it’s hard to be taken ­seriously as the “party of progress” when your candidates look like the founding fathers, as they might look today.

None of this is said with any satisfaction. It has long been a good thing, how the Democrats have placed a premium on youth. Remember JFK, from his own ­inauguration: “The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans …”

He was 43 years old when he won office. Bill Clinton was 46. Obama was 47.

Warren, who is 70, is younger than the men who have seen her off, and her supporters made a big show, last week, of her jogging gleefully up the stairs, while Sander­s had to use the escalator.

She has plenty of energy. Her campaign is finished, however. It is going to be old white man v old white man for the nomination, then old white man v old white man for the White House.

It is worth asking: where are the minority candidates? They did start with some, but they have all fallen by the wayside Former ­Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race Sunday.

Former Democratic presidential primary candidate Pete Buttigieg endorses Joe Biden. Picture: AP

At 38, he was the field’s youngest­ for a while, and also gay. He didn’t get anywhere with the party of progress, either.

But again, it’s not how old they all are. It’s how woeful. Mike Bloomberg, at 78, had some positive qualities and relevant experience, but he is now out of the race, and that is probably the one positive­ take-out from Super Tuesday: money can’t buy you love, and nor can it buy you office.

We saw that in Australia last year, when Clive Palmer poured $50m into his campaign for zero return. Fifty million in just about any other country on earth would buy you some kind of seat, somewhere, surely.

Bloomberg is also a billionaire. He was elected New York mayor three times. But New York is not America.

It’s certainly not Trump’s America. Of course, plenty of people want none of these people in the White House. They want Donald Trump returned to the White House.

There seems little doubt that he is more popular now than he has ever been. There was that bumpy start. He got fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, but they were all in the right states. He had a terrible inauguration — the protest by the pussy-hat wearers was bigger — and he’s been impeache­d.

Yet he is now on track for a second term (probably because he was impeached; his supporters really hated that). It is fairly common­ for US voters to give their presidents a second go: Ronald­ Reagan got two terms, as did Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Trump expects the same. And there is no one else on the horizon­. His supporters can ­hardly believe their luck.

But this week isn’t about Trump’s supporters. It’s about those who support the Democrats. The party has known since day dot, which is to say, since the day Trump was elected, that this day — the next election — was coming, and they knew exactly when — the date’s in the calendar — and yet they’re running who?

One of the same guys who couldn’t beat Hillary Clinton for the nomination last time around.

Sanders is a hit with the kids, we’re told. So is Darryl Braithwaite when he belts out The Horses. Sanders is also a democratic socialist who until now — and he’s not there yet — has never been the first choice of his own party.

Why they think he’ll be the first choice of Americans is a mystery.

Still, he’s out there happily trying­ to tear down fellow Democrats. That’s the process, and you could argue that much the same thing happened with the Republicans in 2016.

They had a dozen candidates. They knocked each other down and out. They ended up with Trump. He wasn’t supposed to be electable, either. Only in looking back can we can see how electable he always was.

It still stands as one of the greatest political upsets ever.

Biden’s showing this week has been described as a “political ­miracle” too. Just days after being written off, he won 10 out of 14 states. Yet is it really a win to beat the guy who wasn’t popular enough to even run against Trump last time? Right now he has to take what he can get.

But to take the White House, the Democrats have to beat the incumbent. They have to do it not in Maine, but in places such as Kansas. Truly, on that score, they’re a long way from home.