Live Blog: Final Presidential Debate - A Discussion with "Joe"

*10:32 PM EST*

McCain's closing statement: "A Record of Reform" :-) ... this needs to be on every ad, every speech, every press release from the McCain-Palin campaign from now on.

Obama's closing statement: "McCain = Bush" ... I think McCain put a chink in this piece of armor tonight.

One noticable thing tonight that concerns me? The gender gap with women consistently favoring Obama on most of the economic questions in the CNN dials.

McCain's score: 9.5/10 ... Obama's score: 6/10

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*10:25 PM EST*

Rob Bluey tweets: "A Democrat who talks about parental responsibility?!? This is amazing. It's the one thing I like about Obama." This is why Obama has appeal with independent voters. It gives American suburbia concerned about the family unit another option on the ballot. What's a perceived Democratic/liberal value or goal that Republicans can steal? Maybe that will be my next blog post.

But when talking about choice and competition in education, McCain then goes back to the concept that money by itself does not solve problems. $25K per pupil in DC public schools, and yet one of the poorest performance records in the nation ... so what do to? Vouchers. It's too bad that McCain is not registering this message with uncommitted voters on the CNN dial.

I truly think McCain needs to go back to the beginning of this debate as a theme for the rest of this campaign: let's not have a domestic and economic policy that divides this country. Let's have policies that unite this country under one umbrella of equal opportunity, not equality of condition.

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*10:18 PM EST*

Another friend on Twitter says: "I want whatever stuff McCain is on. Seriously."

They've swtiched back on the abortion question: Obama is on the defensive, trying to explain his pro-choice position. What does McCain do? Attack Obama's record in the Illinois State Senate on this issue. Check out http://BornAliveTruth.org.

I really wish someone would merge the pro-life and Giuliani positions: Roe v. Wade is terrible, abortion is a tragedy ... but, as long as Roe v. Wade is the law, we should encourage less abortions and more adoptions. Obama is taking this middle-of-the-road position, and he's spiking with both men and women on CNN's dials.

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*10:00 PM EST*

WOW! McCain: "You're against a free trade agreement with Columbia, one of our strongest allies in the region. Yet, you want to meet with Hugo Chavez without precondition."

Amazing, just amazing! Meanwhile, we should ask Joe Biden the same thing: he voted for a free trade agreement with China and against a free trade agreement with Singapore. In fact, he voted for every free trade agreement under the Clinton administration, and against every FTA in the Bush administration. Question to Senators Obama and Biden: what makes China more deserving of free trade relations with us than Singapore?

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*9:55 PM EST*

Double BINGO for McCain ...

1. On the subject of spending, Obama responded to McCain's description of Palin by praising Palin and then saying that to deal with things like autism, more money needs to be spent. What does McCain ask? Exactly the right question: why is it always about more spending? Money doesn't solve all the world's problems .... transparency, accountability and reform get a lot further than money. Another theme for McCain to use!

2. "How much will you reduce American's dependence on foreign oil?" McCain has just successfully merged of foreign, economic, and energy policy. Talking about Obama's insistence on negotiating with our enemies without precondition while talking about the dangers of foreign dependence to our national security and economy. The zinger? McCain separates the rhetoric of Obama with the intentions of Obama on offshore drilling: "we shouldn't be 'looking at' drilling ... we can drill here and drill now."

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*9:46 PM EST*

"Why would your running mate be better than your opponent's as president?"

The CNN dials on John McCain's answer on Sarah Palin are significantly higher that those for Obama's answer on Joe Biden. Why? Joe Biden and Barack Obama have nothing in common ... Sarah Palin and John McCain have everything in common ... what's the theme? Yes ... it's the courage to reform.

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*9:41 PM EST*

Soren says on Twitter: "Where has this McCain been? This is awesome."

This is fantastic. McCain has successfully wasted 2 minutes of Obama's time talking about ACORN and Bill Ayers.

Obama didn't condemn John Lewis' comments, nor did he condemn ACORN's practices. More fodder for the fire!

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*9:25 PM EST*

McCain: "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should've run four years ago."

HURRAH! The next step for McCain should be the theme of "The Courage to Reform" ... start making ads telling stories about how McCain has stood up to his own party and stood up against what was popular at the time, in order to put his country first. So many ways to combine stories, themes, and past message points that can work for him.

McCain: "I have a long record of reform. Senator Obama, you have no record of standing up for anything."

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*9:17 PM EST*

McCain: "You told Joe the Plumber that you want to spread the wealth around. So Joe gives you his money, and you spread it around."

BINGO! B-I-N-G-O!!! Class warfare is bad. For the next 2.5 weeks, McCain needs to use this and say what he said exactly just now: that during a time of economic turmoil, during a time where we need to help both individuals and businesses, that we shouldn't be raising anybody's taxes, we shouldn't play favorites, we shouldn't pick winners and losers. Barack Obama's promise to unite is being unraveled by his policy goals that increase class warfare. This might, just might, be the type of response McCain can have to this whole Obama-Biden "fairness"/socialist argument.

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*9:09 PM EST*

"Why is your economic plan better than your opponent's plan?"

I'm not even paying attention to both candidates' bloviating answers. Obama and McCain seemed to have switched the positions they were in at Saddleback: Obama is the one looking at the camera with confidence talking to the American people, while McCain is the one being defensive only looking at Bob Schieffer. Not good ... hopefully things will change once they open up the format to back and forth questions.

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*8:58 PM EST*

Apologies for the two week hiatus in blogging. It's been busy at work.

So, should I watch the debate or the NLCS? The fact is that the chances of the Dodgers, or the Red Sox (my beloved team), coming back to win their respective series is about the same as John McCain's chances of winning this election.

For the past couple weeks, I've had some difficulty in reacting and reflecting back on the events that have happened: the financial and credit crises, McCain's campaign suspension (but not really), both candidates flailing around to come up with "a plan," Obama's surge in battleground states and the electoral college, etc.

Two things grabbed my attention. First, Obama, the unions, and other liberal groups have been attacking the McCain health insurance tax credit plan as a "tax on your health insurance" when in fact McCain would replace the current employer-based health insurance tax exclusion that favors rich folks with a $2,500 individual tax credit ($5,000 for couples) that could insure up to a third of those currently uninsured and would overwhemingly help those in low- to moderate-income brackets, a net tax cut for most Americans. But Obama has effectively convinced Americans that this proposal is bad, and did something I thought no Democrat could do to a Republican: saying that "we can't afford John McCain" in an ad attacking his tax plan. Have we come to the point where a Democrat is telling voters that we can't afford Republicans? This shows that McCain's ability to communicate his proposals has been terrible in the short term, and the old conservative movement is in shambles in the long term.

Second, Obama is starting to do what McCain did at the Saddleback Forum: telling stories. From the ad about his mother dying of cancer to segway into a message about health care to another ad about how his grandfather was a war pilot and his grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line, Obama is taking a page out of McCain's book and connecting with the American people through stories. And it's working.

On that note, here are a few things McCain needs to do tonight:

• Continue to tell the stories like the ones he told at Saddleback.
• While comparing himself to Obama, also compare the rhetoric of Celebrity Obama to the shifting of Professor Obama.
• Ask serious questions of Obama on Fannie, Freddie, ACORN, Ayers, and Rezco.
• Find a theme: the first presidential debate was centered around the theme of "responsibility" for McCain. I would like to see a theme based on the "Courage to Reform," asking the American people to take a close look at the record: McCain's political courage vs. Obama's political opportunism.

Here we go!