Age probably doesn't matter - it's not like he'd be that old - but the country doesn't have a great track record of electing non-incumbent Democrats to the White House who are "old". The past six (Obama, Clinton, Carter, Kennedy, FDR & Wilson) were between the ages of 43 and 55 when first elected.
Sample sizes? This is, frankly, a dumb comment. There may be reasons why Cooper would be a mediocre candidate (boring, for one), but age is not one of them.
"Sample sizes" is a lame, catch-all comment. Any speculation, precedent or trend having to do with presidential elections whatsoever can be negated by yelling "sample sizes!", considering there have only been a few dozen of them.
Sure, and most generalizations about past elections to apply them to future elections are stupid. This was a particularly stupid one, since it concocts a formula that apparently only applies to one of the two parties in the system even though the parties have changed extraordinarily in both their policy positions and voters over the period of time used for reference in making the generalization.
It doesn't apply to just one side. There's a six-year gap between the average age of the two parties' Presidents over the past 100 years, whether you measure from Taft-Obama or Wilson-Trump. If you take Coolidge, Truman and LBJ out of the equation (all of whom assumed the Presidency initially without being elected), the gap is ten years. While the following are far too exclusionary, throw out everybody prior to Truman (all in their 50s), and the gap is still ten years; exclude LBJ & Truman on top of that and it's 15 years.
A Republican President elected in their 40s in the past century not a thing. The only two Democratic Presidents in the past 100 years first elected in their 60s were the two who assumed incumbency under abnormal circumstances before being elected. From Taft to Obama, the difference between the two parties' oldest elected Presidents is five years; between their two youngest, seven years. From Wilson to Trump, it's six and nine, respectively.
It's a notable difference - sample sizes or not - irrespective of it meaning anything (I never claimed that it did). The fact that "the parties have changed extraordinarily in both their policy positions and voters over the period of time used for reference" doesn't make it less intriguing: it makes it
more so.
Anyway, if you don't like blind speculation using data-points from the 58 elections we've actually had, then pick a different board. You're not going to find much value here, and that's generally something on which we can all agree.
