Live-Blog: Final Presidential Debate screening in the Brown-Alley Room

Welcome to The Collegian's blog about the final 2008 presidential debate. This is the fifth live blog for The Collegian during the election.

Dan Petty, our online editor, was blogging live for The New York Times. Click here to read his posts.

I think this debate was a draw. Both McCain and Obama did well. The attack ad exchange was petty and unhelpful to McCain. Obama was slow to get started, but did well staying on message. Thanks for joining us online at The Collegian!

-- David Larter

10:30 p.m. -- Obama wants to focus on early childhood education and raising teacher pay in exchange for better support. He agrees with McCain about charter schools.

This is a good exchange. Both candidates are going back and forth and engaging each other on substantive issues. It was the best exchange of the four debates. Both McCain and Obama are well versed on the issue.

McCain is making a solid closing statement about his commitment to serving his country.

Obama said: "I'm sure our brighter days are ahead of us. But we need to invest in the American people."

10:20 p.m.-- McCain had a solid response on attacking Obama's reccord and not his personal associations.

The moderator asked why the United States spends so much on education, yet its students don't have the test scores other nations have.

Obama said the United States should invest in early childhood education and make college more affordable. He also presented his community service plan, where the government would reimburse some costs of college when students participate in community service or serve in the military. He then presented a more conservative concern, saying parents need to take responsibly for their children and be involved in their lives.

McCain said promoting competition between schools in various districts by supporting charter and private schools would force schools to improve.

10:10 p.m. -- McCain had a strong response to the question about whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned. He said he would never impose a litmus test on a nominee for Supreme Court, meaning that there is no one issue that would disqualify a nominee. Obama used the same tactic he used against Hillary, and diffused the remark and the whole issue by saying, "I agree with Senator McCain."

10 p.m.-- McCain: "I admire Sen. Obama's eloquence, and you really have to pay attention to the words. He said: 'We are going to look at off-shore drilling.'"

McCain just made a very condescending remark about Obama, telling him that if he traveled to Columbia he might understand the issue of free trade with Columbia. It is interesting that he would do that because history tells us that condescension is a bad tactic. It turns off voters. Obama responds that he actually understands the situation in Columbia well.

Obama is articulating his health care plan. Look for McCain to attack it heavily. Again, this is an opportunity for McCain to contradict Obama and draw a clear contrast between himself and Obama.

Question: What is a "working family." What does that mean?

9:50 p.m. -- The moderator asked both candidates whether they thought their running mates were qualified for the presidency. I like this question from the moderator. It gave both candidates the chance to sound like good people. Obama is still on message, but McCain is coming around. It's good for McCain that the debate has moved on from the attack ads.

Obama: "We only have 3 to 5 percent of the world's oil." We use 25 percent of the world's oil.

9:40 p.m. -- Obama is doing the right thing here. He is staying above the fray and trying to direct attention to the issues. This is a totally irrelevant exchange. It amounts to a cat fight between two grown men. This is not where the debate needs to go and it's a losing approach for McCain.

Obama: "The American people have become cynical because all they see is a tit-for-tat between two politicians."

Obama is relentlessly on message. This is the tactic that Bush used to fend off Al Gore and his Democratic opponent, Anne Richards, for governor of Texas.

Obama: "Mr. Ayers has become the centerpiece of McCain's campaign." He is giving a fantastic explanation of the Ayers and ACORN scandals. He is being detail-oriented and thorough. This is a losing tactic for McCain. He needs to lay off and get on message.

9:30 p.m. -- McCain is looking very strong. McCain: "Let me just say, I'm not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

McCain just used a Hillary line, "I've disagreed with my party and I've got the scars to prove it."

McCain is really doing well at being an attack dog. Is this the tactic he needs to take? Obama: "I think that the American people care less about our hurt feelings than about us talking about the issues."

9:20 p.m. -- Obama has to push his "pay-as-you-go" idea. He has the stereotype of being a big liberal spender. Hammering the point that every program proposed will be matched with a cut is the move he needs.

McCain started out sloppily but has hit his stride early. Obama looks a little off guard.

9:10 p.m. -- McCain's economic plan seems to have morphed a bit since his first debate. McCain is advocating putting the home owners first. He is telling a long story that is losing me. I don't really understand the point. He needs to be more concise.

Obama is smartly avoiding the story about "Joe the Plumber" and outlining his policy position.

The point that McCain was trying to make was that Obama told Joe the Plumber that Obama wanted to redistribute wealth. This is a good tactic. McCain is pushing fiscal conservatism. Obama needs to find a good rebuttal beyond, "I think some people could afford to pay a little more."

9 p.m. -- About 60 students are still getting seated in the Brown-Alley Room, chewing on pizza and getting ready to watch the final presidential debate.

Pre-Debate Commentary: Game changer

The buzz phrase circulating in the media today and during the last week: "John McCain needs a game changer," every pundit on every 24-hour news network, said today. Tonight's debate will be the last chance for each candidate to state his case about why he should be president. Barack Obama is ahead by about eight points in the polls, according to pollster.com. I do not see how a dramatic "game-changing moment" could help McCain. I cannot foresee him doing the same as former President Ronald Reagan's famous knock-out punch against Walter Mondale: "I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience," Reagan said, when asked if his age was an issue in the campaign.

The truth is that McCain has tried game changer after game changer. His majestic descent on Washington to rescue America from economic implosion three weeks ago did nothing except turn the race dramatically on its head. McCain, who was surging in the polls after the Sarah Palin pick and the convention, has begun to see his poll numbers sink.

McCain has reinvented himself more than Madonna. The real issue challenge during this debate will be not to have the latest version of McCain released to the public, but to do what Obama has done since the financial crisis emerged: Play it cool.

A fair analysis of the candidates' reaction to the financial meltdown would reveal that Obama did almost nothing. Theatrics aside, McCain acted decisively. He pulled the parties together and did all he could to force a controversial package through Congress. That's what a president does.

Obama made phone calls. When reporters asked Obama surrogates what he was doing to respond to the crisis, they almost uniformly responded that he was talking to the people involved in fixing the crisis: Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, President Bush and Warren Buffet. The problem with that answer is that any consumer of the news had all the same information that Obama did. During that week, you could not turn on your television without seeing Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke or Secretary Paulson explaining the reasons for the crisis and what the government was doing to intervene.

Essentially, Obama had about as much to do with the bailout package as I did -- he stayed informed.

The problem McCain ran into is that the bailout was the least fiscally conservative agenda ever pushed by a so-called conservative White House. The newly energized conservative base was marginalized and ignored when McCain pushed an agenda that has led to the nationalizing of America's major banks this week.

So, what can McCain do tonight to turn this trend around? Be himself. The base that is abandoning McCain will not pull the lever for a hard-line liberal such as Obama. The base will come home on Election Day. People vote based primarily on who they think will offer security. Perhaps all of Obama's rhetoric about radical and fundamental changes in our approach to the economy will scare off enough voters to swing the election McCain's way. That is his only hope at this point.

Tonight McCain needs to abandon these silly attacks on Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko and start focusing on issues and drawing clear differences between himself and Obama. Right now, I don't see any differences except on the issue of tax cuts, a relatively minor issue. He who is the steady, experienced hand will guide America through the crisis and win Nov. 4.

Obama has succeeded because he has been collected during this crisis. He has appeared "presidential." McCain does not appear presidential, he is presidential. He clearly has the experience and knowledge to lead the country and his record does not support Obama's claim that he will just be another four years of Bush. McCain has broken with Bush on many high-profile, important pieces of legislation. McCain can win this election if he ignores whatever voices in his campaign are telling him that Bill Ayers is a big deal.

-- David Larter