In the Wake of the Tsunami

What wisdom can we take in the wake of "Tsunami Tuesday"?

Milliions of Americans voted in primaries and caucuses across the country on Tuesday. And neither party is 100% certain who its nominee will be.

So those who believed that everything would be settled before Valentine's Day are facing a different reality than the one they expected.

Republicans can be reasonably sure that John McCain will be at the top of their ticket. He has about 60% of the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination, and even though the Republican Party awards most of its delegates on a winner-take-all or winner-take-most basis in most states, they are awarded proportionally in most of the states that are left.

So it just doesn't seem possible that Mitt Romney and/or Mike Huckabee can win in enough places and by margins that are large enough to deny McCain the nomination.

But McCain turns 72 in August. No one that old (who wasn't already the incumbent) has ever been nominated by a major party.

People worried about Ronald Reagan's age, and he didn't turn 70 until after he took the oath of office. (For that matter, Reagan hadn't had two bouts with cancer or spent several years of his youth as a prisoner of war, either.)

People worried about Dwight Eisenhower's age and he had just gotten into his 70s when he finished his second term in office. (He also had a history of heart attacks.)

Along with complaints about McCain's conservative credentials from Romney and Huckabee, we might also hear rumblings about how he's "too old."

Well, to misquote Forrest Gump, maybe "old is as old does."

On the other hand, when you consider McCain's age, his selection of a running mate must be assessed in terms that go beyond the potential to gain votes for the nominee. His running mate could very well become president.

As I've pointed out before, this country was in a pattern for well over a century in which the vice president became president about every 13 years due to the incumbent's death or resignation. That hasn't happened since 1974, when Gerald Ford became president upon Richard Nixon's resignation.

It's been more than 40 years since a president died in office. And he was assassinated. The last president who died of natural causes while still in office was Franklin D. Roosevelt.

So, in historical terms, we're way overdue.

And if we elect a 72-year-old man president, it's entirely possible that he won't survive a four-year term -- or eight years in office, if he is re-elected in 2012.

Some people have suggested that Huckabee has remained in the race to strengthen his bargaining position for a spot on the ticket. If McCain chooses Huckabee as his running mate, be aware of the role vice presidents have played in our history and ask yourself if you want a potential commander-in-chief -- or pastor-in-chief?

Just something else to consider when you're deciding which candidate to support.

On the Democratic side, the race is still wide open. Hillary Clinton won nine primaries and caucuses, including the biggest ones (California and New York), and has 823 delegates pledged to her. Barack Obama won 13 contests and has 741 delegates.

To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must have 2,025 delegates -- so both candidates are well short of the mark right now.

If Obama wants to be president, writes Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, "he will still have to slay the dragon. And his dragon is the Clinton attack machine, which emerged Tuesday night, not invincible but breathing fire."

John Judis writes, in the New Republic, that all four of the leading Democrats and Republicans have their problems. It's hard to argue with that.

At this point, with voters in more than half of the states having voiced their opinions, we still don't know who the nominees will be.