Obama Three for Three: Short Takes on the Final Presidential Debate

Don Hazen:

On the day that the Dow went down 733 points -- the most ever in a single day -- after going up almost a 1,000 the day before yesterday -- also the most in a single day -- John McCain showed that he really can't change at all. McCain had to transform his method and tone of communicating to have any chance of gaining any ground against the unflappable and eerily consistent Obama in the third debate.

But McCain couldn't change at all and, in fact, did worse. His scripted Joe Plumber scenario didn't pay off and left the viewers confused. His attacks about Bill Ayers reduced his favorables consistent with poll results. McCain has been on a losing streak for almost two months, and there is no sign he can break out of his self-imposed straightjacket and dependence on the Rovian tactics that have consistently proved unpopular except for his ever-narrowing hard core base.

While McCain didn't totally fail to address individual questions offered by Bob Schieffer and even made a couple of good points, it was the overall flavor of the encounter that was decisive. All McCain could do was ratchet up the persona he displayed in the first two debates -- he was more pushy, more agitated, more scripted, more aggressive, and as a result, he got nowhere. The two of them could debate 50 times and the results would be the same: Grumpy old man losses to smart, calm, cool and collected every time.

In the debates, Obama is like the player in a squash or racquetball game who plants himself in the middle of the court and can't be budged, winning point after point. McCain desperately tried to get around him, but there was no where to go. It is all about position, and Obama occupies the middle. Obama proudly said he was for tort reform angering the trial lawyers, for charter schools annoying the teachers, for clean coal, pissing off the enviros, and against late-term abortions, not the political position of pro-choice groups. In virtually every issue, McCain desperately tries to paint Obama as the extremist, but ends up with the opposite effect at the extreme end himself.

The McCain mantras -- Obama is for higher taxes, Obama is unilateral, Obama is against Colombia and free trade, Obama won't drill for oil, Obama is out of the mainstream of America on abortion -- all rang hollow because McCain has no credibility on these issues. Each time Obama is able to reframe McCain's attacks and persistently push out his message of middle class tax cuts, health care reform, energy independence, and investment in education. He does it over and over and over. For the third debate in a row, McCain did not utter the term "middle class," as if it is a stigma -- clearly not a way to win an election in America, in a time of acute economic distress when there is enormous hostility toward the wealthy bankers, hedge funders, and financial class whose astounding greed brought us to the abyss, and now everyone will pay for it.

Late in the debate was the clincher for McCain's demise. McCain lost it the most when discussing abortion, putting air quotes around “health of the woman," belittling women's health concerns as if it were a political slogan, This stage of the debate was infuriating, and will be remembered by millions of women. The notion that many women thought McCain to be pro-choice, is now ancient history.

Meanwhile, Obama went out of his way to show his support for aging single women who were desperate for health care. The marriage gap is huge -- with giant numbers of single women supporting Obama -- but now there is little doubt he is also going to get the majority of married women as well. The end result is we are looking at a potential rout -- the momentum just keeps building. The possibility of a huge victory for the Democrats seems not only possible, but likely, with even a decent chance of getting 60 seats in the Senate, an astounding achievement, should it come to pass, after eight long years of Republican rule.