Despite what my judgment is telling me, I would like to nominate Mario Cuomo for President.
When people ask me where I stand politically, I often respond, "Mario Cuomo was the last politician I cared about. The rest is noise."
I grew up, during the 70s and the 80s, feeling extremely strongly about politics. What I have found, increasingly, is that the people being offered to me as "Democrats" are pale imitations of Mario. None of the passion, none of the charisma, none of the sheer rhetorically expressed rage.
I was happy during the Clinton years--as were more people than would care to admit it these days, in the midst of a fog of "how evil the Clintons were" angerspeak. Happy by comparison with the way I felt during the Bush years: an undercurrent of profound misgiving punctuated by moments of wincing guilt. Amd by comparison with the "am I going to be beaten up because my parents are liberals?" Reagan years.
However, my morality has changed. I want a candidate who understands the ability of language to express anger. Clinton has anger, but she expresses it at a shouting pitch. Obama feels anger, but his speeches muffle it, somehow, beneath clouds of tear inducing but chronically edge-less rhetoric.
Forget the age thing. Mario for President!