Delbert Hosemann is a spry 71. He has the slim build of the longtime long-distance runner he is. Although he’s not done a half-marathon in two years, he still runs 3 or 4 miles every other day and keeps a 9-minute-per-mile pace. That wouldn’t be shabby for someone 30 years younger.
Still, 71 is five years older than the typical U.S. retirement age and just seven years shy of the average life expectancy for an American male.
In all but politics and on the federal bench, 71 years would be considered time to hang it up, or at least start slowing down. Instead, Hosemann is seeking a promotion to lieutenant governor, officially the No. 2 job in all of state government but arguably the most powerful.
The optics will be interesting, assuming Hosemann wins the GOP nomination and faces his most likely Democratic opponent, 55-year-old state Rep. Jay Hughes of Oxford, in the general election. If age becomes an issue, though, Hosemann should be able to overcome it. He has done an excellent job as Mississippi’s secretary of state for the past 12 years. He’s got the Republican establishment behind him, including Gov. Phil Bryant. And there’s no indication, except possibly the open governor’s race this year, that a Democrat can win statewide office.
Nevertheless, if Hosemann is elected in November and serves the maximum two terms allowable, he will be 80 years old by the time he finishes serving as lieutenant governor. Maybe he will still be spry then, or maybe he will be another Thad Cochran, who in his later years in the U.S. Senate was propped up by his handlers and was encouraged to stay on even longer than he wanted to.
Hosemann himself was a victim of Cochran’s longevity. Cochran contemplated retiring before the 2008 election but ran again because the state, still in the midst of its recovery from Hurricane Katrina, needed his sizable influence over the purse strings in Washington.
Six years later, with his 76 years clearly taking their toll on his physical and mental vigor, Cochran was persuaded to run again. He barely held on against a much younger and feistier challenger in Chris McDaniel.
Hosemann conceivably could have won either of those Senate elections had Cochran bowed out. But by the time the respected senior senator finally decided to retire in 2018, Hosemann’s age became a liability because of the assumption that he wouldn’t be in Washington long enough to build up the seniority it takes to lead the powerful committees that direct where federal money is spent. As a result, Bryant instead appointed then 58-year-old Cindy Hyde-Smith to the Senate vacancy, giving her the leg up that helped her win the special election to complete the final two years of Cochran’s term.
Congress, whose graying had become pronounced in recent times, just experienced an infusion of fresh blood with the midterm elections. PBS News Hour calculated that the average age of Congress is now 10 years less than it was in 2018, thanks to the election of an unusually high number of millennials.
The Supreme Court, the nation’s most long-toothed governmental body, is also experiencing a “youth” movement of sorts. The two most recent appointments — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both in their 50s — have brought the average age of the nine justices down to a modest 66 years.
But Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a current Hollywood darling and one of the court’s liberal members, is trying to hang on at 85 despite just undergoing her third surgery for cancer in 20 years. The speed with which she returned to work after the first two surgeries was remarkable and solidified her image as one tough woman. Ginsburg’s recovery is taking longer this time, and she will miss court arguments next week.
She should retire, of course. Anyone with her health history and age would, but she refuses to give up her seat because she doesn’t want to let Donald Trump add his third justice to the court and even more heavily tilt it to the right, conceivably for decades to come.
Like Ginsburg, Hosemann believes he’s got more years of public service in him. Still, there’s really no comparing their situations. He’s 14 years younger than her and obviously in much better health. The biggest difference is that voters will decide when Hosemann is too old to hold office. In Ginsburg’s case, no one but she gets to make that call.
Contact Tim Kalich, editor and publisher of The Greenwood Commonwealth, at (662) 581-7243.
