do you, in a new millennium, with a rising craddock coalition, do you want a 70-year-old or a 75-year-oldresident at the head of your party? it's a good question. mark: i predict there will be limits to the debates of other candidates. we will see how jim webb and lincoln chafee do. john: those of the five candidates on the debate stage tonight. it will be obvious looking at that stage that a couple people are missing. that's right, larry lessing not invited. also more notably, note joe biden. -- no joe biden. the vice president has been watching at home whether he decides he will run. do you think at this moment, given everything going on in the world, he may have waited too long? mark: i think the bar is higher for him to get in and launch successfully. there was a lot more momentum behind him a few weeks ago. then your times has always been influential in reflecting the conventional wisdom correctly in a piece that compared him to mirror cuomo. we had it in our focus groups. if you want to be president, why are you not in? if you are equal beginning in october, how can you be competing