3rd Presidential Debate - Last, Best & Final?

"Last, Best and Final" is a term usually used for bidding on contracts, often in Government circles. It is where you cut out all the fat and put forward your absolute best chance to win.

With just 3 weeks left until the election, tonight's final presidential debate at Hoftra University on Long Island, NY at 9PM Eastern time, might be John McCain's last chance to turn his campaign around and try to hold on to enough battleground states to pull out a win.

If the words spoken tonight were to come from John McCain's campaign, there is not telling just what might be said given recent campaign ads and rhetoric channeled through Sarah Palin. But this will be John McCain speaking. A decent man in a desperate position who is almost certainly at odds with the "win-at-all-cost" kamikaze tactics of those running his campaign. If John McCain is truly a maverick, what we might see tonight is him breaking away from his campaign and saying not what might be politically expedient, but what is in his heart. I don't know if that tactic will turn things around for him, but he would be at peace with it and it certainly couldn't do worse with the American electorate than the recent negative campaigning.

Obama and Biden have challenged John McCain to mention Obama's association with William Ayers to his face and McCain has at least verbally agreed to do just that. When a batter tells a pitcher to "go ahead and give me your heat", the pitcher better be throwing something better than just a fastball, because the batter will be sitting on it and waiting to hit it out of the park. I don't know if McCain will bite and try to discredit Obama on this association that is already old news that didn't get traction outside core Republicans. If he does, I have a feeling that Obama has a great counter punch ready. I hope for all concerned that the two of them just stick to the questions asked by moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS.

An interesting note today is that Christopher Buckley has been let go by The National Review, founded by his dad, the late William F. Buckley. It seems that Christopher's article in The Daily Beast over the weekend "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama" led to an onslaught of hate mail at The National Review. In fairness to Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher and former high school classmate of mine, Jack Fowler, Buckley soon thereafter submitted his offer of resignation which was quickly accepted. Buckley's next posting at The Daily Beast was "Sorry, Dad, I was Fired". There is a lot of anger and frustration in Conservative circles and I hope the pressure is released in a non-destructive fashion.