Obama, McCain lock horns in final U.S. election debate

Dharam Shourie

New York, Oct 16 (PTI) In their most lively but
contentious face-to-face debate, Republican and Democratic
presidential candidates – John McCain and Barack Obama –
sparred over their respective economic, healthcare, energy and
education policies, promoting their ideas to mostly undecided
voters and slamming the other's as doomed to failure.

In their third and final televised debate before the
November 4 presidential election, underdog in opinion polls
McCain reacted angrily when Obama compared his ideas to
President George W. Bush's eight years of "failed policies", a
line that Democrats regularly take to criticise him.

"Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted
to run against President Bush, you should have run four years
ago," McCain shot back looking directly into Obama's eyes.

"If I occasionally mistaken your policies for George
Bush's policies, it's because on the core economic issues that
matter most to the American people, on tax policies, on energy
policy, on spending priorities, you have been vigorous
supporter of President Bush," Obama replied.

This was one of the highly contentious exchanges which
highlighted the nervousness of the candidates with election
only three weeks away. With some polls showing that McCain was
behind some of the battle ground states as also those which
had voted Republican in the previous several elections, he was
under strong pressure to distance himself from Bush.

Though polls give Obama up to 10 percent advantage
over McCain, analysts say that much would depend on whether
the White voters are ready to accept a black in the White
House. If race factor does play up, Obama lead could come down
sharply, they say, giving example from previous elections.

The final debate Wednesday night was purely on
domestic issues and the international or terrorism issues were
not brought up though at one stage McCain did refer in the
passing to his often repeated charge that Obama wants to sit
down and talk with the Iranian president. Obama did not take
cue and the matter ended there.

The financial crisis which continues despite injection
of billions of dollars by Washington in the economy was upper
most in the minds of voters listening to the debate as also of
candidates seeking their support.

Both agreed that times were tough and it could take
quite sometime to fix it but stuck to their already
articulated policies, thus added nothing new to the debate.
The only thing they could agree upon was that it was tough
times for the Americans, especially the working class, and
sometime needs to be done to fix the economy.

Both also agreed that increasing government budgetary
deficit and loss of jobs were two issues that need immediate
attention but disagreed on the best way to fix them.

Analysts said that this was the best performance from
McCain among all three debates he had had with the Obama and
that he particularly shined in the first half an hour. After
that, Obama appeared to have regained the confidence. Towards
the end of the debate, McCain was occasionally seen
suppressing his anger at a time when Obama looked more
relaxed.

They said the success in the last of three debates
would depend on how far the candidates have been able to swing
the independent and undecided voters.

During the 90-minute debate, each charged the other
with spending most of the money on negative campaigns and
putting the responsibility for starting such advertisements on
the other.

McCain also asked Obama to explain his relationship
with William Ayers, a 1960 radical who belonged to Weather
Underground, a group that bombed federal buildings to protest
over Vietnam War.

Republican Running mate Sarah Palin had often accused
Obama of hobnobbing with the "domestic terrorist" Ayers but in
the last debate McCain had not referred to him. Later, Obama
challenged him to refer to him on his face and McCain did
exactly that.

"Mr. Ayers was not involved in my campaign," Obama
shot back, adding that he would not be his advisers if he is
elected President. He had sat with him on community board in
Chicago but on it were other Republican and Democratic leaders
too. "He was simply an acquaintance," Obama said.

But McCain asserted that the record of Obama on this
needs to be examined.