Ed. note: What fol­lows is a letter addressed to John McCain on the occa­sion of his 72nd birth­day from William Wineberg, a San Fran­cisco attor­ney and self-​described life­long Repub­li­can who has decided to vote for Barack Obama this elec­tion. This is not a chain letter or an unsourced for­ward; it came to me by way of a close friend of mine, who is also Wineberg’s nephew, and is pub­lished here with Mr. Wineberg’s approval.

Rather, I post the letter here because I’ve long been dubi­ous of the argu­ment that John McCain’s age should be no more rel­e­vant to the choice for pres­i­dent than Barack Obama’s race or Sarah Palin’s gender. I don’t ques­tion that ageism is a real and often nefar­i­ous social ill, but nor do I think that it is accu­rately or use­fully equated with racism and sexism. Advanced age can have seri­ous cog­ni­tive con­se­quences, as race and gender do not, and these only accel­er­ate after age 70. I leave it to Mr. Wineberg to recount the impact these con­se­quences have had on his own life, and to sug­gest how they might affect McCain’s abil­ity to be an effec­tive pres­i­dent. For what it’s worth, I think there are other and better rea­sons to vote for Barack Obama and against John McCain, but I agree with Mr. Wineberg that McCain’s age is some­thing that ought to be seri­ously reckoned.

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Dear John,

As we cel­e­brate our respec­tive 72nd birth­days it is appar­ent that we have a lot in common. You were born on August 29, 1936; I was born two days later on August 31st. While you went to the Naval Acad­emy, I attended Stan­ford and we both grad­u­ated near the bottom of our respec­tive classes. We were com­mis­sioned as Naval Offi­cers in 1958 and each of us failed in our first mar­riages. Luck­ily, how­ever, we both are now hap­pily mar­ried to suc­cess­ful women who each are over 18 years younger than we—quite a chal­lenge to keep up with them, and a real incen­tive to enjoy life after 72.

While I cannot claim an expe­ri­ence com­pa­ra­ble to five years in cap­tiv­ity in Viet­nam, it is appar­ent that our Navy ser­vice has sub­stan­tially affected our lives. You recov­ered from your cap­tiv­ity to become a lob­by­ist for the Navy and then a Con­gress­man and Sen­a­tor. After the Navy, I “grew up,” applied myself, headed the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago Law Review and became a trial lawyer. We both have been life-​long Repub­li­cans and we both per­son­ally knew and were influ­enced by Barry Gold­wa­ter. We both believe in ser­vice to our coun­try, but have we learned to rec­og­nize our limitations?

Where we differ—John—is that I know that I am too old to be Pres­i­dent of the United States. From every indi­ca­tion, you are too.

There is a reason that nobody our age has pre­vi­ously run for the high­est office in the land. I am much too old to be a CEO of a major cor­po­ra­tion. How many cap­tains of indus­try have assumed the helm at age 72? And, as you more than I know, by 72 vir­tu­ally all of the Gen­er­als and Admi­rals have been sent off into retire­ment. What I absolutely do know John is that I am now too old to run a major law firm or to try a major case as lead coun­sel. Where I used to bill over 2,000 hours a year and work late into the night and on week­ends, now I am awake late at night con­tem­plat­ing my pros­trate. It’s not a com­plaint, John—just a fact of life—I just don’t have the sta­mina any­more to work the hours
required of a chief exec­u­tive much less as our nation’s President.

While unlike you, I reg­u­larly use the inter­net, I rec­og­nize that tech­nol­ogy is pass­ing me by and I must rely upon others to do things I used to do well myself. While I have been in good health, exer­cise stren­u­ously and play hard­ball in a league with play­ers as young as 30 years old, I am just not what I used to be when it comes to deal­ing with a crisis or work­ing long hours. Each morn­ing as I climb out of bed my aching limbs remind me of my age and mor­tal­ity. Given your POW expe­ri­ence and med­ical his­tory, I cannot imag­ine that you are not expe­ri­enc­ing the same.

I also find that my memory is slip­ping. I have always had excel­lent recall, but now and again I am frus­trated by the fact that I am occa­sion­ally draw­ing a blank when seek­ing to remem­ber a name or event. I can still come up with the infor­ma­tion, just not as quickly or as accu­rately. In that con­nec­tion, I often find myself either embell­ish­ing or con­fab­u­lat­ing events of my past life. Those old sto­ries just keep get­ting better and I find myself telling them over and over again to the point of tedium. I also find that I am less diplo­matic and more prickly than before, so I fully under­stand your frus­tra­tion in deal­ing with that TIME writer who wanted to know your def­i­n­i­tion of “honor.” From observ­ing you through­out this cam­paign I know that you are shar­ing my expe­ri­ences. At 72 we should not have to explain our­selves and we have earned the right to lose it occa­sion­ally. That said, how­ever, John I am not sure that approach works in diplo­macy or that it is appro­pri­ate for the Pres­i­dent of the United States.

John, we both have a wealth of expe­ri­ence in our chosen areas of endeavor and we have much to con­tribute based upon our age and experience-​but I know that given our age we both have blind spots in deal­ing with the chal­lenges of the 21st Cen­tury. Our expe­ri­ence can only take us so far—at some point we must pay our respect to father time. That is the reason why, in busi­ness, law and pol­i­tics, age matters.

John, on our 72nd birth­days I wish you well for a long and dis­tin­guished career in a role that is appro­pri­ate for our age—the United States Senate.

With all best wishes and Happy Birthday,

William A. Wineberg
Stan­ford, Class of 58
U.S. Navy 1958-61