Why do journalists keep telling us who’s going to win or lose? Is that really the point?

Calvin Trillin:    Iraq.  I mean I think healthcare, but I think there’s been so much demagoguery on healthcare.  And that’s another way we’re falling behind, in fact.  I mean if you look at the, say, American automobile manufacturers, their cost . . .  I mean why is somebody’s healthcare tied to his job on the assembly line?  I mean it’s absurd.  But if you do something else, the talk is socialized medicine. 

But there is, you know, 46 million people I think I read last week, who have no insurance – no coverage at all – and actually don’t go to a hospital.  Or as the President said, they can go to an emergency room.  It would be interesting for him to try that one of these days – go into one of these emergency rooms late at night when your kid’s sick.  So I think that in those sort of things I think that should be a big issue, but I’m not sure that it will be.  Everybody’s been burnt on it I think. 

September 5, 2007