Candidates battle to a draw

He mentioned the middle class six times. (McCain mentioned "middle-income" Americans three times.) And Obama noted the price of gasoline in Nashville -- $3.80 a gallon.

Aides for both campaigns had prepared their candidates for an aggressive debate.

McCain has sought to refocus attention since last weekend on Obama's background in an effort to reinforce voters' doubts about the first-term Illinois senator.

McCain's aides concede that the four-term Arizona senator probably will lose the election if the financial crisis remains voters' top concern.

Earlier Tuesday, the McCain campaign released four separate statements highlighting Obama's past associations with William Ayers, a University of Illinois professor who co-founded the militant Weathermen group in the late 1960s, which planted bombs in government buildings.

"Barack Obama is just not being straight with the American people," said McCain's spokesman, Brian Rogers, who called Ayers an "unrepentant terrorist."

In response, Obama released a new TV ad Tuesday calling McCain "out of ideas" and "out of touch."

The ad accuses McCain of using "smears that have been proven false" in an effort to divert voters' attention from the threat of losing their jobs, homes and savings.

Obama's campaign also has fired back this week by releasing a video and other details about McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s.

McCain and four other senators were accused of intervening with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, an Arizona businessman who headed a savings and loan that later failed. Keating was sent to jail for fraud.

The Senate Ethics Committee cleared McCain of wrongdoing but said he "exercised poor judgment."

By comparison, the candidates on Tuesday evening were models of courteous restraint. Disciplined, perhaps, by the fact that they were talking directly to ordinary voters, McCain made no mention of Ayers, and Obama made no mention of the Keating Five.

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doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Times staff writers Bob Drogin and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.