Don't rule out seniors for President

I cannot believe that anyone would consider age as the determining factor in the presidential election. From the very beginning of our fight for independence as a nation, age was viewed as a basis for wisdom.

Benjamin Franklin was an excellent example. At age 69, he was appointed the postmaster by the Continental Congress. At the age of 70, he was one of the Committee of Five who drafted the Declaration of Independence. From the ages of 70 to 79 he served as the American Ambassador to France and from the age of 78 to his death at the age of 82, he served on the Pennsylvania Executive Committee.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who suffered the crippling effects of polio as an adult, served four terms as President of the United Stated during WWII. He died at the age of 63, but polio and WWII definitely aged him by more than 20 years. Just take a took at the photos of Roosevelt during his first term and then look at the photos at the Yalta Conference. Yet the debilitating effects of polio did not stand in the way of him leading a nation out of the Depression and to victory in both the European and the Pacific military theaters.

What about Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated at the age of 63? Much has been written about this giant among men, yet who but Lincoln could have been the President during the tumultuous years of the Civil War?

All these men lived through less medically and technologically advanced times and yet were able to meet the challenges of the pressure and stress associated with their unique period in our history. Are the voters just supposed to throw wisdom and knowledge and experience out the window because a candidate happens to be older than the other preceding candidates for the position of president? Are the voters supposed to believe that a younger, less experienced candidate will undoubtedly be a better choice for president?

The assertion that age is somehow the sole catalyst for dementia will probably send the largest two voting blocs, those of the "Greatest Generation" and those of the "Baby Boomers" into a justifiably angry response. McCain is no more ready for pasture than the hundreds of thousands of Americans, who at ages 70 and up are still on the payrolls.

Tricia L. Dieringer

Elgin