John McCain came into the third and final presidential debate needing to somehow wrestle the campaign out of Barack Obama's arms. He did not do it.
There was no single moment that was likely to reverberate in the minds of American voters and change the course of an election that has moved dramatically toward Obama in the last several weeks. But the 90-minute debate was a perfect distillation of McCain's general election campaign, with all of its inconsistent messages.
He spoke passionately about education and free trade and put Obama on the policy defensive more than in previous debates, but he also spent precious minutes bickering over a domestic radical from the 1960s. He spoke of his desire to reach peaceably across the aisle, while at times exuding what seemed a barely controlled anger, his jaw clenched as he appeared to show disdain for his opponent.
McCain needed to focus with laser-like intensity on middle-class fears over the faltering economy, the universal concern of undecided voters. Initially, he did that. He spoke repeatedly about "Joe the Plumber" -- so repeatedly that by mid-debate Obama too was addressing the man who first surfaced this week at an Obama event to question the candidate about taxes.
But soon the Republican was off-topic and into the swamp of cultural issues that voters have said are not important as their retirement savings dwindle and their homes and livelihoods are threatened.
In a race in which millions of dollars have been spent for the votes of American women, McCain managed in a two-question segment to mock laws protecting a woman's right to sue for being paid less than a man, and the notion that late-term abortions should be allowed in cases where a mother's health is threatened.
"That's the extreme pro-abortion position -- quote, health," McCain said.
Early instant polls of voters gave the night to Obama.
"There was no knockout punch for McCain, and as far as Obama was concerned, at a time of enormous national anxiety and uncertainty he came across as a voice of deliberate and deliberative reason," said Mark Petracca, a UC Irvine political scientist who is a Democrat.
Still, McCain had reason to be pleased with parts of the debate. He appeared far more energetic and focused for much of it, and he touched more on the middle class' travails than he did in the previous two debates. On radio, where his tense demeanor could not be seen, he might have come across more positively, as Richard M. Nixon did in debates with John F. Kennedy.
