Thread by @ashtonpittman

Let's reflect back on the quaint days of 2014, when MSNBC ran think-pieces like this one pondering whether or not Hillary Clinton, 67 at the time, might be too old to run for president in 2016. 1/

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1216130385773572102

As we look to the possibility that the Democrats might choose, to challenge Donald Trump (age 74 in June) one of 2 men (Joe Biden or Biden Sanders) who'd turn 80 during their presidencies, let's recall this 2014 Nat. Journal piece about then-67-yr-old Hillary Clinton's age. 2/

And while the press has moved on from the fact that Bernie Sanders literally had a heart attack on the campaign trail, let's remember the final days of 2016.

Each week, voters told Gallup what words they heard about Trump/Hillary... 3/

Each week, what voters said what they heard in the news about Trump usually related to his vague "policy" rants (immigration, ISIS).

With Hillary, each week was dominated by "emails" and other faux-scandals.

Except Sept. 12-18, when health, pneumonia, sick" were top words. 4/

Note, "health" comes up for Hillary in another week, too. For Trump, it only comes up once, during the week Hillary had pneumonia—despite the fact that she was 69 and he was 71 (and there was significant talk of concerns re: his mental health). 5/
news.gallup.com/poll/195596/em…

Meanwhile, the media, while focusing on fake Hillary "scandals" (as Trump's DOJ investigations and GOP investigations have admitted were baseless), apparently got Trump's "policy" messages out on policy issues.

He had a few hundred words on policy online; she had 120,000. 6/

Some pointed out that Hillary's campaign ads didn't focus enough on policy. Maybe that's true, but on days when she gave a dozen+ hour-long speeches laying out specific policies (including a major address on the federal courts' importance), all top media stories were...emails. 7/

Literally, the only break the media took from focusing coverage of Hillary around a baseless email "scandal" was to go on and on about her pneumonia scare after Trump took away the "Is she too old?@ talking point. 8/

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden turning 80 soon isn't nearly as big of a point of contention in mainstream coverage (aside from folks like Dave Weigel pointing it out) as Hillary's bout with pneumonia (which was still about her age, I'd argue) was. And one man had a heart attack. 9/

I'm not saying we need more "OMG, too old? Will they die in office?" concern troll stories.

I'm saying... man... the double standards of mainstream coverage of Bernie and Joe vs. Hillary is astounding.

Hillary being 67-69 was a bigger concern than Bernie/Joe being 77/78. 👨🏻‍💻

And I'm quite aware that there are stories about Biden and Sanders' age, btw.

But the pneumonia story (which was about age; Obama also got pneumonia during the 2008 campaign, but you probably didn't know that) was the *only thing* that knocked "emails" off the top for a week.

There were a dozen+ speeches that were an hour long, not dozen hour long speeches, tbc.