McCain Mentions Mum to Challenge Age Critics

A 96-year-old woman with a history of driving fast cars might seem like an unlikely campaign weapon, but it is one that John McCain has deployed to good effect.

Addressing concerns today that he is too old to be president, the Republican presidential nominee invited anyone with doubts to meet his mother.

Roberta is 96 and has shown few signs in recent years that age has slowed her down. McCain likes to tell how his mother, who spends about three months a year on holiday abroad, usually on long drives, was denied a rental car in Paris in 2006 on the grounds of age.

She bought a car and drove it round France, shipped it back to the States and then drove it 3,000 miles from the east coast to the west.

McCain, speaking in Washington today at the annual meeting of the Associated Press, said Americans should judge him on his energy, his intellect, experience and judgment, not his age.

He said he had out-campaigned his Republican rivals by working between 16 and 20 hours a day.

"I am capable of doing that," he said. "I know I am doing that. If anyone has any further doubts, come and meet my 96-year-old mother."

McCain's birthday is on August 29 which means he would be 72 on becoming president.

Strategists with Barack Obama, 46, favorite to take the Democratic nomination, signaled today they are planning to make age an issue, portraying their candidate as representing youth and change and McCain as old-fashioned.

McCain said today that, because of his age, the American media was placing great importance on his choice of vice-presidential candidate, but he insisted that a shared philosophy, values and priorities mattered more than the age of his running mate.

"That would be the criteria that I have. But certainly it will be an important selection. It should always be an important selection. And it may be viewed by some as more important in my case," McCain said.

He said he hoped to have a decision on who would be his vice-presidential candidate "earlier than later, but it is a long process to go through".

McCain, who is occasionally accompanied on the campaign trail with his mother, tells another anecdote about her.

Three years ago, she was stopped by police in Arizona for driving at 112mph.