McCain tries to fight his way back into contention during debate.

McCain was certainly more feisty than he has been in previous debates but, in order to do so, he had to be more dishonest than he has previously been.

He pretended that any complaints coming from people regarding comments made from crowds at his and Palin's rallies were somehow an attack on Vietnam vets and decent people. He also, once again, implied that the campaign would not have turned negative had Obama agreed to more Town Hall meetings.

He even, ludicrously, charged Obama with wanting to run against Bush and saying:

"Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.

Obama has strongly made the case that the policies which McCain pushes are almost identical to the policies of the last eight years, so McCain's defence was weak to see the least.

McCain finally brought up the subject of "the washed out terrorist" Bill Ayers, which he has being promising to bring up at this debate. Obama easily saw the point off, as he was eight years old when Ayers committed the crimes which McCain is seeking to tie him to.

McCain tried to portray Obama as some kind of socialist:

"The whole premise behind Senator Obama's plans are class warfare plus spread the wealth around."

And he implied that Obama was slippery when he stated, "I admire so much Senator Obama's eloquence and you really have to pay attention to words" and then derided Obama for saying that he would "look at" offshore drilling. Apparently anything other than a full commitment to offshore drilling is somehow dishonest or, at the very least, slippery.

All that said, McCain gave his best debate performance of the three presidential debates, but it wasn't enough. He was pugnacious, he was feisty, but he is on what Bill Clinton calls, "the wrong side of history."

A CNN instant poll awarded the debate to Obama, who secured 58% to McCain's 31%. A CBS poll gave it as Obama 53% to McCain's 22%.

McCain attacked and slugged away all night, but Obama remained presidential and, more importantly, at the end of the night he was the guy that "you would want to have a beer with"; the ultimate Republican test of presidential candidate's electability.

Three debates, three victories.

Obama has more than shown that he has passed the threshold to be the next president of the United States.

Tags: McCain, Obama, US election 2008, presidential debates