HILLARY Clinton turned 69 on Wednesday.
Donald Trump turned 70 last June 14.
Joe Biden will be 74 on November 20.
Luckily, it’s the septuagenarians who actually want to out up their dukes.
Hillary can be the referee.
Behind the gymnasium.
In some of the more bizarre exchanges in a presidential campaign that has redefined the term, Vice President Joe Biden said at a rally that if he and Trump were back in high school he would take the Republican presidential candidate behind the gym and, well, not to merely give the mogul a tongue lashing.
Biden was fired up as a result of accusations levelled at Trump by a number of women.
Earlier this week, Trump came back swinging.
He said to supporters at a rally in Florida: "Did you see where Biden wants to take me to the back of the barn? I'd love that. I'd love that. Mr Tough Guy. He's Mr Tough Guy. You know, he's Mr Tough Guy, when he's standing behind a microphone by himself."
Trump, of course, delivered his riposte standing behind a microphone by himself.
But this campaign delivered a KO to irony a long time ago.
Nevertheless, the idea of a veteran politician and a veteran businessman/entertainer putting on a pair of gloves does stand up in the context of analogy.
Like the old political fighter that he is, Biden had to decide as late as this year that he would not be continuing his storied political career.
He would be retiring next January when the new vice president came knocking on the door of his official residence.
Trump doesn’t seem ready to retire from anything.
Even if he loses his title clash with Hillary on November 8.
As Trump threw down the challenge to Biden, the New York Times came out with a front page story headlined “What Drives Trump? A Fear of Fading Away.”
The report, based on “hours of interviews” that Trump gave to a biographer back in 2014, pointed to a reason why Trump may well hang around - even if he is beaten by Clinton.
The interviews, according to the Times report, show a powerful driving force behind Trump: “his deep-seated fear of public embarrassment”.
"The recordings reveal a man who is fixated on his own celebrity, anxious about losing his status and contemptuous of those who fall from grace.
"They capture the visceral pleasure he derives from fighting, his wilful lack of interest in history, his reluctance to reflect on his life and his belief that most people do not deserve his respect.”
The interviews, said the Times, made clear just how difficult it is for Trump to imagine – let alone accept – defeat.
The opinion polls would suggest that Trump is facing precisely that, though the ink was barely dry on the Times story when a new poll put him ahead by a couple of points in Florida.
November 8 might be a wipeout, it might be a split decision.
But Trump, if the man sticks to what he has been saying, could well, at best, accept the result as nothing more than a TKO.
Which would leave a lot of room for an outright repudiation of what the judges, they being the voters, came up with after 2016’s rumble in the political jungle.
The result of the election should be clear by a little after 9pm eastern time on the 8th.
By that time the outcome in battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio will be coming into clear view.
Florida, of course, was the setting for the battle in 2000 pitting Al Gore and George W Bush.
Gore ultimately withdrew his post-vote challenge, but while not a few people still think that the then Democratic Vice President won that election, the argument had been largely parked, this until recent days when the Trump campaign dredged it up as a possible justification for Trump not accepting the election outcome this time around.
The sobering part of this is that Trump would have little trouble convincing millions of his followers that the election had been rigged against him.
It won’t be, but, as with irony, truth has been frequently on the ropes during this campaign.
All this means that Hillary Clinton needs not just a win, but a victory so clear cut that there can be no argument, no repudiation, no court challenge.
It’s a tall order because Donald Trump doesn’t look like he wants to fade away any time soon.
