The warning to America from the Associated Press could not be more stark: Elect John McCain and he will die, leaving you with Sarah Palin, a woman whom the less-than-impressive David Frum condemns as “not up to the job of being president of the United States” in an interview with the left wing daily New York Times.

If John McCain is elected and goes on to win a second term, there’s as much as a one-in-four chance America could see its first woman president – Sarah Palin.

It’s actuarial math.

The odds highly favor either McCain or Barack Obama completing a first term in good health. After that, McCain’s odds still are still fairly solid, but his chances of dying or being in poor health go up faster than Obama’s, mainly because of his age.

An Atlanta actuarial company specializing in individualized estimates of life and health expectancy has run the numbers for McCain, 72, and Obama, 47. The firm, Bragg Associates, calculated the odds of the candidates dying in office, adjusted for their known health problems.

Health problems?

The firm’s estimates for McCain and Obama relied on medical information disclosed by the candidates. Bragg Associates has no partisan agenda, said Brooks: “We don’t have a dog in this hunt.”

He classified the Democrat as a smoker with minor upper respiratory problems, probably linked to his smoking. Obama announced in February that he was trying to quit smoking again, with the aid of nicotine gum.

“We don’t consider you a nonsmoker until you stay quit for 12 months,” said Brooks.

Obama would be a “nonsmoker” for which purposes? Once he has stayed away from cigarettes for a full year, has Obama’s cancer risk subsided?

Nope, and I don’t have to look anything up or provide links. But I will.

According to the American Cancer Society, we learn that:

About half of all smokers who continue to smoke will end up dying from a smoking-related illness.

But Barry’s trying to quit! And we learned that if he stays off cigarettes, his risk of stroke could return to normal by the beginning of a hypothetical second term:

5 years after quitting: Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker 5 to 15 years after quitting.

Or Obama’s risk of stroke could remain elevated under he’s built his hypothetical Presidential library after a conjectural second term.

Obama would still be at elevated risk for cancer throughout both of these hypothetical two terms.

You see, I know this one. I was younger than is Barry when I quit smoking, yet I still contracted a bad dose of Base of the Tongue cancer seven years afterwards. So far, it seems to have been cleared up – knock on wood – but one never knows – with me, or with Obama.

10 years after quitting: The lung cancer death rate is about half that of a continuing smoker’s. The risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix, and pancreas decrease.

Obama will be at increased risk of heart disease until he’s Bill Clinton’s age:

15 years after quitting: The risk of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker’s.

“It’s actuarial math,” asserted the AP when making its case that – headline – “One-in-four chance McCain may not survive 2nd term.” Well, these are medical facts ignored by a media which seems to take some perverse pleasure in pointing out that John McCain is an older man who thus has a greater potential for health problems. They ignore that Obama has an elevated risk of contracting any number of nasty things.

I applaud Barry’s attempts to quit smoking. I wish him the best. Remember, I began that difficult task and I succeeded. This was seven years before I was diagnosed with BOT cancer. Obama is at risk. If he were to succumb in office, that would leave us with a President Joe Biden. He might unilaterally invade Pakistan and tell its President Zardari that if he were violently deposed, he could always get a job as a taxi cab driver in Dover.

Where is the media on Obama’s potential health risks?