Here's *exactly* how Joe Biden should talk about his age

On wisdom.

(President Joe Biden)

Joe Biden just found the perfect message to combat nagging worries among the American public that he is too old to be president for another four years.

The problem? He’s not the one saying it. At least not yet.

Here’s MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski — on Monday — talking about Biden’s advanced age:

Here’s the key bit:

A lot of people say Biden's age is a factor, and you're damn right it is...With age comes wisdom, experience...and he's unafraid, and that's what makes him an effective negotiator, effective at diplomacy...I wouldn't want anyone else doing it.

Yes! That exactly!

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One of the oldest (and truest) rules of politics is that the way to win is to over-index talking about your strengths while downplaying your weaknesses. And the best way to downplay a weakness is to neutralize it by casting it as a strength.

Obviously this is FAR easier said than done. (If it was easy, everyone would do it!)

But, when it comes to Biden’s reelection, turning his age from a major negative into something, well, less toxic, is job #1. And Biden and his team would do well to advance just the argument that Mika is making.

The facts are these:

1. Biden is very old. (He turned 81 earlier this month.)

2. He has slowed, visibly, during his time in office.

3. Time is undefeated.

Given #3, #1 and #2 ain’t changing. Biden isn’t going to get younger. Or start to move more quickly — or spryly.

So the only way around the age problem (and, to be clear it is a MAJOR problem in the eyes of voters) is through it. You can’t change Biden’s age. What you can change is what his age means to voters.

Right now — thanks, in large part, to the Republican noise machine — Biden’s age is perceived as almost a pure negative. The GOP — from Donald Trump on down — blast out edited clips of Biden stumbling and bumbling, creating the image of a doddering old man being led by dark forces.

“It’s never been worse than it is now under crooked Joe Biden and, frankly, his boss, Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump said at a campaign rally last month. “I think it’s his boss.”

That strategy has worked remarkably well. Consider a late August Associated Press poll. Voters were asked to name a word or two that came to mind for Biden. The most common ones mentioned? “Old.” “Outdated.” “Slow.” “Confused.”

The success of Republicans’ efforts to cast Biden as a relic has been helped by Democrats, largely, ceding the messaging field to their adversaries.

When asked publicly about his age, Biden usually resorts to jokes. At a ceremony pardoning the presidential turkeys just before Thanksgiving, the president assured reporters he had not been in attendance at the first such ceremony — 76 years earlier.

“I want you to know I wasn't there at the first one. I was too young to make it up,” he said.

Privately, the White House’s view on the age question is far more, um, angry. They believe that the media has overblown Biden’s age — creating it as an issue in the minds of voters.

In response to a CNN story about a Biden press aide ending a news conference while the president was still answering questions, White House principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said this on Twitter X:

The White House has also insisted that the media has somehow equated Biden’s age with Trump’s four felony indictments — as if they are on the same level.

(Sidebar: I do not agree with the claim that the media created the age issue. The fact is that Biden is old — as anyone who sees and hears him can tell.)

(Sidebar 2: The age issue is NOT anywhere near equivalent to Trump’s many legal problems. Or to the fact that he actively sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The media needs to always point out that while Biden is indeed old, his opponent is facing a myriad of counts of wrongdoing — which is a FAR bigger deal.)

The main takeaway here is that Biden’s age IS an issue for voters (no matter how it became one) and that means the White House desperately needs a strategy on how to address it.

There have been hints that Biden and his team are inching toward the course charted by Mika.

“I have more experience than any president has in the history of United States,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser earlier this month. “One of the things that comes with age, hopefully, is wisdom.”

Back in May, in an interview with MSNBC, he sounded a similar note.

“I have acquired a hell of a lot of wisdom and know more than the vast majority of people,” Biden said. “And I’m more experienced than anybody that’s ever run for the office. And I think I’ve proven myself to be honorable as well as also effective.”

That messaging, however, has been sparse — and limited. In the main, the White House seems to have stuck its head in the sand on the issue, believing, contra all available evidence, that voters will just get over their doubts about Biden’s age the more they see him on the campaign trail.

Winning politics means dealing with the world as it is, not as you want it to be. And for the Biden campaign, that means finding a way to neutralize the age issue in the minds of voters.

While casting age as an indicator of experience and wisdom — rather than one of declining mental and physical abilities — won’t erase doubts in every voters’ mind about Biden, it’s, by far, the best message the president has on his biggest vulnerability heading into 2024.

He should start using it. And soon.