This Old Debate

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain squared off for the final time Wednesday night in Hempstead, Long Island. Not far from there is the New York Stock Exchange, where the Dow fell more than 700 points, losing more than a trillion dollars.

So naturally, the economy was Topic A. Both presidential candidates trotted out their by-now-familiar positions on how to fix it, before things really get out of hand.

If anything new was added to this debate, it was McCain's inclusion of Joe Wurzelbacher, a supporter from Ohio he met along the campaign trail. "Joe the Plumber" was used as an example of how small business people like him would be hurt by Obama's tax proposals. Then both candidates were talking about "Joe the Plumber" as if he were a real person. (It must be true. ABC's Nightline interviewed him by phone after the debate.)

Moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News asked better questions than his predecessors of Obama and McCain, who were sitting beside each other, in a format that seemed like an extended version of Face The Nation (which he hosts on Sunday mornings).

For instance, Schieffer got them to talk about the negative campaigning that both of them had been running. McCain kept bringing up Obama's connection to William Ayers,a 1960s-era radical (now considered a terrorist) whose violent methods were repudiated by the Illinois senator. ACORN, an organization that's been accused lately of getting out the vote for Obama through phony names and payments, was also brought up. Obama, for the most part, simply shrugged them off. But McCain did back off on Reverend Wright.

McCain did a much better job this time, but the split-screen reaction shots on TV told you all you really needed to know about both candidates. McCain was the animated one, ready to freak out at a moment's notice. Obama remained calm and collected throughout. Which one would you rather have in a moment of crisis?

Considering the fact that McCain now trails Obama in most of the major polls with less than three weeks to go, we wonder if the Arizona senator's performance will make any difference. It's going to take more than "Joe the Plumber" to fix his leaky campaign.