I debated getting into this. Looks like Katie Couric (hat tip, Drudge) has forced my hand, grilling John Edwards with questions – though they all seem like statements – including, “Some people wonder if you are in denial.” “Some have suggested that you’re capitalizing on this.” “You’re putting your work first, and your family second.” “The president can not be distracted by caring about his wife’s situation.”

Meanwhile, USA Today has asked Americans what they think.

Americans by 2-1 support the decision of former North Carolina senator John Edwards to stay in the Democratic presidential race even though his wife, Elizabeth, has been diagnosed with a recurrence of breast cancer.However, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that 38% of the public is inclined to believe that Edwards eventually will have to withdraw from the campaign because of her illness. Fifty percent believe he will stay in the race.The telephone survey of 1,007 adults was taken Friday through Sunday, just after John and Elizabeth Edwards held a news conference Thursday in Chapel Hill, N.C., to reveal her diagnosis and discuss their decision to stay in the presidential race.The questions about Elizabeth Edwards, asked of half the sample, have a margin of error of +/—5 percentage points.

This is a profoundly touchy subject, so I’m going to share some thoughts from readers without naming them. This reader more or less reflects my sense of things:

I think that at her age she knows what she likes, and obviously she likes hanging out with her husband, watching him play politics. Me, I like hanging out in the backyard with my grandsons and the dog, and if I found out I had cancer, I’d try and do that as much as possible. Different strokes, etc.

Indeed. If I were facing a limited time on this earth (actually, we all are), I probably wouldn’t want to spend it on the campaign trail. But then again, EE gets the roar and applause of the crowd, meeting people all around the country and now, endless messages of sympathy and support. Heck, maybe I would want to experience that if I were in her shoes.

One reader said this news is making him think more highly of Edwards, even if he isn’t likely to vote for him:

Ever since I first saw John Edwards I thought he was too slick by half. He treated the entire electorate like a jury needing to be persuaded. Yesterday I think I saw the real man. I don’t like his policies any more than in the past but I think I would be more comfortable with the real John Edwards as a potential president than his rivals. If he stays real, he might do a lot better.

Another reader thought the public will offer sympathy, but not their vote:

There has been quite a bit of debate about whether or not the Edwards’ announcement helps or hurts John Edwards’s campaign. Allow me to offer this prediction: It ends the campaign. It’s over now, everybody can pack up and go home. Apparently the average life expectancy of someone afflicted with this condition is [limited]. That means that there is a better then not chance that Elizabeth Edwards, God bless her, will succumb to her cancer sometime during her husband’s first term. There is no voter then America that feels his or her signature issue can be relegated to the back burner until 2012, whether that issue is Terrorism, Iraq, Global Warming, Poverty, Health Care, or anything else you can think of. Voters can’t vote for John Edwards because it is almost certain his attention will be diverted during his first term. And he can’t say otherwise, because what husband’s attention wouldn’t be diverted by his spouse’s last moments on Earth? To say that his won’t be is to say that he is inhuman, which dooms his campaign just as assuredly.

And I kind of liked the thought of this reader, who said…

No-one may be saying it yet, but many of us are sure thinking it: how could one possibly put someone in the White House, in particular in a time of war, who not just might, but very probably will have to deal with the tragedy of his wife’s cancer getting seriously worse before his first term is over?
I have had a sister, a father and a father-in-law die of cancer and there is no way one could give appropriate attention to that kind of tragedy and the calls on a President in time of peace, let alone of war, at the same time. It must be that the pros and the big givers are thinking the same and he simply won’t have the talent and money to compete, let alone get the necessary votes. He must know that too. So, what is this all about? Just listening to Elizabeth Edwards surely tells the tale. She is a hugely political person and is passionately invested in the importance of her husband becoming President. It is not for all the other things that they mentioned, nor is it despite her needs; it is for her needs that he is going on. She is just not ready to give up on her dream yet. I would never vote for him and I don’t even respect him very much as a professional or a politician, but who can deny him the right to give his clearly beloved wife one last gift?

Maybe having a life-and-death issue front and center will keep this campaign a bit more policy-centered than usual. Who wants to attack Edwards on anything besides his policy ideas during times like these?