(HOST) Along with the rest of the nation, veteran ABC News correspondent and commentator Bill Seamans is looking forward to tonight’s final presidential debate – and thinking about possible tactics and strategies.
(SEAMANS) Their third debate tonight could be the most significant event of the campaign waged by John McCain and Barack Obama – at least until the dramatic tally of the voting on November Fourth,
It will be their last planned face to face encounter – their last best chance to reach beyond preaching to their choirs to win the important, perhaps vital, support of the undecided voters holding their cards closely until they are in the voting booth.
Tonight’s encounter is expected to be contentious despite a public clamor that they stop their character attacks and focus on the major issues facing the country. The moderator, Bob Schieffer of CBS, says he will try not to allow a candidate to avoid an answer by wandering off on a different subject. He says he will interrupt if necessary to pull the speaker back on track. Also, Bob Schieffer says he will ask the all-important follow up question if necessary to clarify a vague answer. Schieffer suggests that he will be a feisty referee in an arena wherein the candidates will be trying for the proverbial knockout punch – and that means they must come up with more than they have offered the public in their two previous meetings.
The pressure on the contenders will shape the tone of the debate tonight. Obama may have tipped off his strategy when the other day he challenged McCain to criticize him "face-to-face." That challenge to McCain’s macho ego suggested that tonight Obama will try to get under McCain’s skin and set off his proverbial angry temper and rattle his argument. Will Obama tell McCain, face-to-face, that he thinks McCain is too erratic, too temperamental and too much of a risk taker to cope with the burdens of the presidency – and that he’s responsible for Sarah Palin’s speeches that arouse the threat of violence from her audiences.
McCain’s strategy, driven by the slippage in his polls, could be desperate. Will he bring up, face-to-face, those very controversial terrorism allegations concerning Obama’s association with Bill Ayers and "palling around with terrorists" as Sarah Palin said? Will he mention the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s controversial former pastor? Will he stick to the economy and stay cool and offer new ideas? Or will McCain uncork an "October Surprise" with a sensational new allegation so extreme that Obama will not be able to convincingly deny it in the short time before the election? Whatever happens, this debate promises to be a real debate compared to their previous relatively somnolent encounters.
And so tonight we the people can tune in and witness our future at stake – on prime time with a beer commercial.