And that was the 2008 presidential debate season

The most important voter ever

Wasn't that fun? Now the debates are in the books, and nothing really happened. John McCain finally mentioned Bill Ayers, but no one cared. Both the CBS and CNN polls say Barack Obama won the third and final debate. We're now 18 days from away from the election, and there's no more conventions, no more debates, it's all up to the two campaigns to manufacture their own successes and failures. Unless Joe The Plumber (pictured?) has anything to say about it. His vote apparently is worth more than all the rest of ours combined, because that's what it says in the Constitution.

Unless Bill Ayers flies a plane into Joe The Plumber's Mushroom Kingdom Castle, the big issue is still the economy, which is only going to benefit the Dems.

And that was the second debate

Another week, another debate, another slight maybe win for the Democrats. People asked questions, absolutely no surprising answers were given, Tom Brokaw kept yelling at the candidates to stop ignoring the rules only they totally still did and CNN's "Republican Strategist" Alex Castellanos gave more points than any other judge and declared Obama his winner.

If a debate where McCain promised to "take the gloves off" that featured questions the candidates had no idea were coming couldn't produce some fireworks, what will? For all the talk about how many people would tune in for this year's debates, how many have had their beliefs swayed one way or the other?

All of this stagnation is helping OBama, because the default focus is on the economy, which plays to his strengths. Without some kind of large distraction, the economy is going to remain the biggest issue on November 4. If McCain wants to change people's minds he needs something big, effective, and not a cheap stunt.

Town Hall Brawl

Don't worry John, I won't let them capture you again!

Barack Obama and John McCain square off later tonight at Belmont University in Nashville in what will be the last debate before the November election.

The topics are supposed to be foreign policy and the economy, but given the fact that the stock market has dropped over 10 percent in one week, the economy will most likely dominate the debate.

Tom Brokaw will moderate the town hall-style debate, and the candidates will have two minutes to answer questions from the audience along with questions that can be sent in here.

I wonder if somebody will ask McCain how this economy is different from the one he faced as a middle-aged man during The Great Depression.

That didn't take long

I should have known that in a debate held at an SEC campus, the candidates would make ads based on the debate with great SPEED.

Here's the McCain campaign's ad, focusing on the number of times Barack Obama agreed with McCain in the debate. A solid ad, though the ending is a bit anticlimactic.



The Obama camp also has an ad out now, featuring a clip of the Illinois Senator talking about the importance of the middle class at the debate. It's a good point made in a rather vanilla ad.



As for the winner, most polls gave the slight edge to Obama or called it a draw. A poll conducted by CNN (that surveyed more Democrats than Republicans) showed Obama leading in every category except national defense, which he gained ground on. A CBS poll of 500 uncommited voters had similar numbers, with 39% saying Obama won, 37% calling it a draw and 24% saying McCain won.

Often, the impact of the debates aren't seen until a few days after, so it will be interesting to see who gets the biggest bounce from this.

McCain: Yah Mo B There

Pictured: John McCain

All the cable news outlets are reporting that John McCain will in fact be at the debate tonight in Oxford, Mississippi. This despite the fact that we don't officially have a plan for the bailout set, unless you count the Paulson/Dodd/Frank plan that was already mostly agreed upon before McCain "suspended" his campaign (even though state headquarters were still open and advertisements have still been airing both on TV and online) to come to DC.

So to recap, McCain's big move led to him pissing off David Letterman, not leaving for Washington until the day after he said he would, reportedly saying nothing in the big meeting with Bush yesterday and attending the debate anyway.

Well, that was a productive stunt.