John McCain's fast driving Mom

Telegraph:

John McCain, at 71 regarded by many as too old to be the next US president, has found the perfect response to the age question: his sprightly 95-year-old mother Roberta.

A poll released on Sunday placed Senator McCain as the new front-runner in the tight four-way tussle for the Republican nomination.

It is a remarkable turnaround for a candidate whose campaign appeared to have collapsed last summer amid debts and acrimony, as well as repeated sniping about his age.

Out on the stump, he outlines his hawkish stance on the "transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism" and details how he championed a major troop increase in Iraq long before it was implemented.

And he pre-empts the issue of his advancing years with a disarming tribute to his mother.

"If there's any question about any age problem we might have in this campaign, there's my genes," Mr McCain said recently at an event in an Iowa restaurant, pointing to his beaming mother, elegantly attired in a tailored cream-and-black wool jacket and matching beads.

"Last Christmas, she went to France," he said. "She landed in Paris and wanted to rent a car. They told her she was too old so she bought one. Way to go, Mom!"

Mrs McCain later shipped the car, a BMW, back to America and drove it 3,000 miles from the east coast to San Francisco.

At the next campaign stop, her son revealed a family secret. "She doesn't like it when I mention that three Decembers ago she was apprehended in northern Arizona, driving across country, without telling me, at 112mph."

Mrs McCain usually spends three months a year in Europe, driving from country to country with her twin sister Rowena.

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She is certainly quick for any age. Not mentioned is that his father is deceased, which has to cut against half of his gene pool. Nevertheless, his age should not be the factor in the race. His policies give people ample reason to vote for and against him. While his poll numbers are coming up a little as his opponents are fluctuating downward, if there was a poll for second choices his numbers would probably top the list.