In re Bobbleheads

It'd kill you to put her on once? Photo by John Shinkle/Politico.

“I think that for a 78-year-old senator, he . . . remains a strong and important voice in American politics and a relevant voice in American politics,” says Feist, whose “unscientific” analysis is that McCain hasn’t been appearing on CNN more recently than he has over the past couple of decades (fact-checkable!). (Via Erik Wempel at WaPo) 

That's it! It's the qualifier, "for a 78-year-old senator". There's some kind of weird obligation to feature a senator who was born in 1936, and McCain is the most strong, important, and relevant one who makes the cut?

No, Mikulski was born in 1936 too. As far as I can determine she has never been on a Sunday talk show since the Congressional Quarterly Roll Call began keeping tabs in 2011. She is real-world strong, important, and relevant, chairing the Appropriations Committee. And it's not as if she lacks presence or wit either.

So there has to be some reason they're not telling us. Unless he meant weak, unimportant, and irrelevant, and somehow misspoke. But surely the equally 78-year-old soon-to-be ex-Kansas senator from Virginia, Pat Roberts, is just as irrelevant.

Did you realize that the oldest serving senator was now Dianne Feinstein, born in June 1933? She's a good three months older than Chuckles Grassley, who would surely be the most irrelevant of virtually all time by any objective measurement, if he didn't actually wield almost as much power in the Senate as McCain does on TV. Maybe we could have some deal where McCain does some work on the Hill for a change (instead of calling out other people for being lazy) and Grassley gets more time on camera. He's a lot funnier than McCain in my view. (I personally think Feinstein is hilarious, for that matter, but it's a lonely opinion.)

I just ran across some polling I hadn't seen before, by the way: PPP found in March that McCain is the least popular senator in the nation in his own state, running approval/disapproval ratings in Arizona of 30/55. And even more unpopular among Independents than Democrats, whatever that means:

McCain has a 35 percent approval and 55 percent disapproval rating among Republicans; a 29 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval rating with Democrats, and a 25 percent approval and 55 percent disapproval rating among independents. Despite his old age, McCain has said he is considering running for another term in the Senate in 2016.

Obama is quite a bit more popular, or at any rate less unpopular, in Arizona, at around 43/53. It's fun to think he could take the old fart's seat himself.

Via IEatGravel.