The American Spectator

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Campaign Crawlers

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Even as McCain began to explain why breaking pharmaceutical companies' patent protection would be a bad idea, he couldn't help going off on a tangent, calling himself "one of the great enemies of the pharmaceutical companies in Washington."

He admitted that it was hard for him to defend the drug companies. To wit, "I don't know how you can justify not being able to re-import drugs from Canada."

When he passed the question off to Coburn, the good doctor explained to the young woman that her "real question" was "why can't we let people who can produce this from a generic factory in India have what is intellectual property in America?"

He answered with a question and more wonkery: "If you do that, who's going to put the money in for development in the first place? And it's not all government money; it's only about 15 percent government money in terms of total research and development of pharmaceuticals in this nation."

Re-importation of drugs, of course, would also undermine drug companies' profits and retard research and development. It's clear that McCain doesn't share Coburn's skepticism toward going down that road.

Perhaps Coburn's endorsement and his presence on the campaign trails means that he'd have a hand in setting policy in a McCain administration. He'd certainly be a better asset to any president than Chuck Norris or Ric Flair.

topics:
Health Care, John McCain, NATO