OPINION: Chris Kelly Opinion: An old president, an old friend and a young voice

Aug. 20—As the President of the United States returned to his hometown to pay his respects to a former Pennsylvania first lady and the mother of a U.S. senator, the loser of a recent presidential election watched in awe from a block away.

"You don't meet the president every day," George Svetovich said as we stood squinting outside the Ritz Theater on Wyoming Avenue, less than a block away from St. Peter's Cathedral in Scranton.

Neither George nor I met Biden on Thursday. The president's visit to the viewing for Ellen Casey was brief and tightly controlled by the Secret Service and state police. George, a 17-year-old soon-to-be senior at Scranton High School, was shopping at Boscov's for a coat for his senior pictures before hoofing up to the orange barricades at Biden Street.

We couldn't see much from there, but George said he was excited, anyway. I introduced myself and told him how nice it was to meet someone so young and so earnestly interested in politics.

"We need more young people to get involved," I said.

"We do need young people," George said. "He's not one of them."

He meant Biden, who is 80 and would be 86 before the end of a second term if he's reelected. George said he's "really excited" about voting in his first presidential election next year, but so far isn't wild about the prospect of a rematch of 2020.

"He's an old guy," George said of the president. "Trump's an old guy (77). It's like it's gonna be the same election as it was last time, but they're just four years older. They were too old the first time around."

Spoken like a teenager. Fretting over Biden's age is all the rage lately, particularly in political circles populated by alleged adults. George said he sees corruption in both major parties, but plans to register as a Democrat so he can vote in primary elections.

If Biden is the Democratic candidate in 2024, George said he will vote for the president, "but not really enthusiastically."

"I would not vote for a Republican," he said. Asked why, George cited the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a key reason. He doesn't like book bans, either.

"I don't like anything they're doing, really," he said.

Like lining up to nominate a malignant narcissist facing four indictments, two of which accuse him of leading a coup to overturn the 2020 election he lost. George said it's "amazing" that despite the unprecedented charges against the defeated former president, Trump is far and away the favorite to win the GOP nomination.

"I think it's an embarrassment to America," he said. "And the Republican Party in general."

Ink-stained wretches like me deserve some blame, too. Trump is the greatest gift to the news media since Nixon, but he came with razor-wire strings attached.

"I don't think he would have been president if the news industry didn't give him so much press in 2016," George said.

Ouch.

I winced at his fair point, but thoroughly enjoyed my chat with George, who lives in Green Ridge and pointed out that the neighborhood spawned President Biden, the late Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr. (Ellen's beloved husband), and Sen. Bob Casey, one of eight children she devoted her life to raising with "Scranton values."

"Maybe someday you'll be the hometown kid in the motorcade," I said.

"Maybe," George said with a shrug, revealing that he lost his first campaign for class president.

"Was it rigged?" I asked with a chuckle.

George grinned.

"Anything is possible," he said, but he's not about to make a federal case out of it.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, sends his heartfelt condolences to the Casey family on the loss of a great First Lady. Read his award-winning blog at timestribuneblogs.com/kelly.

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kellysworld@timesshamrock.com; @cjkink on Twitter; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook.