Editor’s Note: Featuring Kathleen Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, a professor of communications and the former dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

LESLEY: Kathleen, are you picking up any ageism out there? Will people actually vote against John McCain because he’ll be 72 years old?

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KATHLEEN: Yes. And when we asked that on the survey we find a higher percent say they will vote against him on age than any other category out there are voting against. So it’s real, it’s there. And the clearest instance that I have that suggests that it’s alive at press coverage is that John McCain’s name isn’t John McCain. John McCain’s name is “John McCain, 71.”

LESLEY: You know, I’m so surprised at that, I must say. I’m actually shocked that — given how different the two sides are on big, big issues — someone would vote against him even if they agreed with him, because he’s 71 years old. But you’re definitely picking it up? Is anyone else surprised?

CANDICE: Well, "Saturday Night Live" – he was on last Saturday, saying … I think he opened the show saying that the main qualification for president is that he be very, very, very, very old. So, he addressed it head-on with the show.

LESLEY: Which means he must be seeing it affecting the polling.

CANDICE: Oh, sure.

LESLEY: And what about his health?

LIZ: Well, Time magazine had a pretty devastating piece on his health just last week, where they discuss how his type of melanoma frequently recurs and it’s fatal and all of that. They went on and on.

KATHLEEN: And if somebody wants to be concerned about health, I applaud it. I think candidates should disclose their health records. But I don’t think we should assume that older ages necessarily equal serious health problems, and younger ages don’t. I mean, John Kennedy, the youngest president in our memory, came into the White House with Addison’s Disease, covered up and undisclosed – which means that he was taking corticosteroids during the Cuban missile crisis. And, you know, taking corticosteroids because you’re under stress, when you have Addison’s Disease has some co-variation with mood swings, and it’s not reassuring that we had a president who may have been experiencing mood swings while the country was on the brink of nuclear war. So, knowing what the health profile is of every candidate is, I think, something that candidates should be obliged to disclose. And if the country is assessing age independent of health, I’d like to know what the concern is about being older.

LESLEY: That’s such a good question. Well, you know, John McCain is about to release his health records, I think in the next week or so. So that’s going to stir up a lot of questions and stories about this very issue.