In a close election, everything matters, including two wild-card issues that have suddenly emerged at the end of this presidential campaign.

One of them has eager voters standing in lines all over the country—but not to vote. They're lining up, sometimes for hours, to try to get flu shots. "It's incredibly serious," said Dr. Charles Gonzalez, an infectious disease specialist at the New York University Medical Center. "We have half as much vaccine as we should have."

"How did that happen?" President Bush was asked during the October 13 debate. He answered, "We relied upon a company out of England to provide about half of the flu vaccines for the United States citizens." Outsourcing? The president offered a solution. "We're working with Canada to ... help us realize the vaccine necessary."

Asked in the previous debate about drug imports from Canada, Bush had said, "My worry is that, you know, [the prescription drug] looks like it's from Canada. It might be from a Third World. And we've just got to make sure, before somebody thinks they're buying a product, that it works."

On the latest health problem, Bush made a plea to the American public. "My call to our fellow Americans is, if you're healthy, if you're younger, don't get a flu shot this year." Gonzalez of NYU said, "The shortfall will be covered by changing the priorities system, which is the eight groups that the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has now recommended for priority." They include young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with chronic medical conditions. Some states are already imposing fines and jail terms for health care providers who violate the guidelines.

That sounds like rationing, which Bush denounced when he said of John Kerry's health care proposal, "Government-sponsored health care would lead to rationing." Bush maintains that the government has the situation under control. "The CDC, responsible for health in the United States, is setting those priorities and is allocating the flu vaccine accordingly," he said at the last debate. That sounds like government control, which he denounced on October 1, saying, "My opponent wants the government to run the health care system."

What Bush warns could happen under Kerry's health care plan—shortages, rationing—is exactly what's happening with the flu vaccine now. So the Kerry campaign is using the issue to symbolize everything that is wrong with the present health care system. "What's the president's solution?" Kerry asked last week. "He says, 'Don't get a [flu shot] if you're healthy.' Sounds just like his health care plan: 'Hope you don't get sick.' "

Meanwhile, the Bush campaign uses the issue to make the case for legal reform. "Vaccine manufacturers are worried about getting sued," Bush said in the final debate. "Therefore, they have backed off from providing this kind of vaccine." Kerry insisted that the system is "starting to fall apart, not because of lawsuits ... but because of the larger issue that we don't cover Americans."

The second wild-card issue is the draft. The issue refuses to die, despite the best efforts of Republicans to kill it. A questioner at the town hall debate on October 8 asked Bush, "Mr. President, since we continue to police the world, how do you intend to maintain our military presence without reinstituting a draft?"

Bush's answer sounded definitive: "There's rumors on the Internets [sic] that we're going to have a draft. We're not going to have a draft—period."

More than 70 percent of Americans oppose reinstating the draft, according to a recent National Annenberg Election Survey. In another Annenberg poll, most 18-to-29-year-olds said they think that Bush favors reviving the draft.

Last month, Kerry was asked whether he thought the draft could return. "If George Bush were to be re-elected ... it is possible," he said on September 22. "I can't tell you. I will tell you this: I will not reinstate the draft." With that, the Web started buzzing with warnings of "the real threat of a draft" and of Pentagon discussions of "a new draft."

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said, "People who just don't believe the president, don't believe in the war, believe that he's going to start a draft. And for a lot of good reasons." Like what? Like what Kerry told The Des Moines Register last week: "With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of the draft. Because if we go it alone, I don't know how you do it with the current overextension" of the armed forces.

Nearly two years ago, Rangel sponsored a bill to reinstate the draft. It languished in the House until this month, when the Republican leadership brought the bill up in order to kill it. They succeeded, by a vote of 402-2.

Republicans are determined to shut the issue down. "From the leadership of the United States Senate, it is a nonissue. And it's one that's not going to be addressed," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said on October 5. Democrats are just as determined to keep the issue alive. "You cannot be for this war and against a draft," Rangel said.

Concern about a draft is a powerful issue, not just for young people but also for their parents, who haven't forgotten how it disrupted lives.