House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi keeps getting That Question—roughly, aren't you a little old for all this? Shouldn't you step aside? And she has
a damn good counter-question:
“When was the last time you asked Mitch McConnell … ‘aren’t you getting a little old, Mitch?’” said Pelosi of the Republican senator from Kentucky.
McConnell, who is 72, has been in Senate GOP leadership since 2003 and the minority leader since 2007. He was earlier on Thursday elected Senate majority leader for the 114th Congress.
At 74 years old, Pelosi has been in House Democratic leadership since 2002 — and has been at the very top of the caucus power structure since 2003.
In 2012, asked a similar question by Tim Russert's little boy Luke, Pelosi
offered some context for why she only reached leadership in her 60s:
I came to Congress when my youngest child Alexandra was a senior in high school and practically on her way to college. I knew that my male colleagues had come when they were 30. They had a jump on me because they didn't have to, children to stay home. Now, I did what I wanted to do, I was blessed to have that opportunity to sequentially raise my family and then come to Congress. But I wanted women to be here in greater numbers at an earlier age so that their seniority would start to account much sooner.
Now, let's get back to that McConnell question.