Analysis: McCain more cutting; Obama low-key

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- It was all about Joe the Plumber.

In the final presidential debate Wednesday night, John McCain and Barack Obama seemed to be vying for the affections not only of the average Joe generally, but of a particular Joe — Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio.

Wurzelbacher had expressed concerns to Obama on Sunday that if Obama were elected, his taxes would go up when he buys his own small business.

"Joe, I want to tell you, I'll not only help you buy that business … I'll keep your taxes low," McCain said. Early in the debate, he cited Wurzelbacher as a sort of middle-class Everyman, then laced the "Joe the Plumber" moniker through discussions of improving the economy, providing health care coverage and pursuing the American dream.

Obama said Joe's concerns about his tax policies were misplaced. "He's been watching some ads of Sen. McCain," he said, wryly.

The third and final debate of the general election was McCain's last chance to curb the momentum that has helped Obama open a lead in nationwide polls and in a series of battleground states. The debate wasn't the only event that could change the campaign's course — a national security surprise or personal scandal still could shake things up — but it presumably was the final one under McCain's control.

So the Republican's tone was crisper, sharper and more cutting than it had been in the first two debates. He kept Obama on the defensive for much of the 90-minute forum, attacking him for everything from his association with '60s radical Bill Ayers to his decision not to take public financing for his campaign.

"You didn't keep your word," he said, noting Obama's promise during the primaries to accept public funds, and their limits, if his opponent did.

Obama was cooler and lower-key, chuckling aloud at several of McCain's ripostes as though to dismiss them as laughable. He looked at McCain when the Arizona senator was talking but, when his turn came, often looked directly into the camera as he spoke — suggestive, perhaps, of the way presidents speak to the nation.

"I don't mind being attacked for the next three weeks," the Illinois Democrat said, calling McCain's attacks a diversion from most voters' central concerns and choosing simply not to respond to several of them. "What the American people can't afford is four more years of failed economic policies."

There were no major new policies proposed nor big gaffes committed by the two candidates, though at one point McCain was speaking with such a rush of words that he referred to Obama as "Sen. Government."

With the rivals sitting on swivel chairs at a horseshoe-shaped table, there was less of the broad body language apparent at the first debate (where they stood at lecterns) and the second (a town-hall-style forum where they roamed the stage).

Alan Schroeder, a Northeastern University professor who studies presidential debates, said afterward that McCain had pursued a "clear strategy of going on the attack" but Obama "seemed impervious to his slings and arrows."

Schroeder's conclusion: "Not a bad debate for McCain, but an even better debate for Obama."

An instant poll of uncommitted voters by CBS News found Obama was judged the winner, 53%-22%. In an instant CNN poll of adults, respondents said by 58%-31% that Obama had done the better job.

A campaign that began more than a year ago for each man now heads into its final, 19-day sprint. McCain stumps in Pennsylvania tomorrow; Obama, in New Hampshire. They are scheduled to appear together just once more, at the annual Al Smith Dinner in New York tonight.

The debate Wednesday took place in a converted basketball arena at Hofstra University, but the two might just as well have been sparring on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, a 31-mile commute to the west.

The Dow Jones industrial average scored its most precipitous fall ever last week, followed by its biggest one-day surge on Monday; it closed Wednesday after a breathtaking 733-point drop. The stock-market roller coaster set the stage for a debate that was dominated in large part by the nation's precarious financial situation and what the next president might do about it.

When Obama tied McCain's approach on the economy to that of the unpopular President Bush — a theme he has repeated relentlessly through the campaign — McCain shot back: "Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

Obama replied, equally sharply: "Essentially, you're proposing eight more years of the same thing."

They touted billion-dollar packages they unveiled this week aimed at creating jobs, preventing home foreclosures and protecting seniors as Americans deal with the economy's travails.

Each insisted his plan would do more to help Joe the Plumber.