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October 15th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

Video & Photos: Barack Obama John McCain Final Presidential Debate 10-15-08 [Full Video]

Barack Obama, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama and Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain took part in the third and final Presidential debate of the 2008 election on October 15, 2008 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

Bob Schieffer, former CBS News anchor and current host of CBS News Face the Nation, was the debate moderator of the debate which had a sit down, round table format and focused on domestic policy. The debate was organized and sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan nonprofit corporation.

Barack Obama, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

The final debate was the most engaging and heated of the three. In addition to much sparring about economic policies, the candidates engaged in contentious discussion of negative campaign ads, negative campaign tactics — specifically the persistent discussion of the McCain-Palin campaign of Bill Ayers, former 1960s radical and member of the Weather Underground, whom VP candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin refers to frequently as a “domestic terrorist.” Congressman John Lewis’ remarks comparing these tactics to those of Alabama Governor George Wallace, an avowed segregationist in the 1960s were discussed and McCain called upon Obama to repudiate those remarks.

Barack Obama, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

Moderator Bob Schieffer raised the issue of negative campaigning, reciting a litany of tough words each campaign had said about the other, asking whether the two men would say it to each other’s face.

“It’s been a tough campaign,” McCain acknowledged. “If Senator Obama had responded to my urgent request” for frequent town hall meetings, “I think the tone of this campaign could have been very different.”

Barack Obama and John McCain, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

McCain singled out Rep. John Lewis’ (D-Ga.) statement associating McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin with former segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace, demanding that Obama repudiate that comment. (Lewis later tempered his initial comments).

“I do think that he inappropriately drew a comparison between what was happening there and what happened in the civil rights movement,” Obama said of Lewis, after complaining about heated rhetoric at the GOP ticket’s events.

Barack Obama, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

As to the overall point, “I think that we expect presidential candidates to be tough,” Obama said, pointing out that polls had shown Americans believe McCain has been far more negative. The two men then bickered over which had been more negative, with Obama alleging that more of McCain’s ads had been negative while McCain pointed out that Obama had been spending record amounts of money on his spot.

In the course of the fight, McCain raised for the first time in any of the debates Obama’s relationship with Weather Underground founder William Ayers, and also referenced ACORN, a community organizing group that has been accused of frraudulent voter regisrations.

Both Obama and Ayers were members of the board of an anti-poverty group, the Woods Fund of Chicago, between 1999 and 2002. In addition, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in April 2001. They lived within a few blocks of each other in the trendy Hyde Park section of Chicago, and moved in the same liberal-progressive circles.

Barack Obama, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

Obama reiterated previous statements that he was only eight years old when Ayers engaged in domestic terrorist activities 40 years ago, that he only knew him casually, and rejected the suggestion that Ayers helped launch his political career in Illinois.

Source: McCain and Obama Argue Over the Economy, Campaign Tactics

Barack Obama, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

But the name heard with even more persistence was “Joe the Plumber” referring to a now famous exchange Barack Obama had in Toledo, Ohio with Joe Wurzelbacher who confronted him on his tax plan and how it would affect a small businessman.

See: Does Joe the Plumber know Joe Six-Pack? and the YouTube video of Joe the Plumber and his confrontation with Obama, a video that had gone viral even before the debate made Wurzelbacher America’s most famous plumber.

For his part, Mr. Obama often returned to the economic struggles of Americans, and emphasized that his economic proposals — a tax cut for households and small businesses making less than $250,000 a year and tax breaks for companies that create new jobs — will provide immediate help to the struggling middle class.

Barack Obama and John McCain, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

Mr. McCain challenged him on this, citing an encounter Mr. Obama had with a plumber while campaigning in Ohio last weekend. The plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher, complained that his small business would see his taxes rise under the Obama tax plan. Mr. Obama responded in defense of his plan, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Mr. McCain, who repeatedly alluded to “Joe the plumber” throughout the debate, cited the exchange and called it “class warfare,” as Mr. Obama slowly shook his head.

John McCain, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008

“Why would you want to increase anyone’s taxes right now, anyone in America, when we’re having such a tough time?” Mr. McCain said.

Neither candidate offered a persuasive answer to a question from the debate moderator, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, about what programs or proposals they would cut to bring the federal budget deficit under control.

Mr. Obama ducked the question entirely, while Mr. McCain answered that he would impose an across-the-board spending freeze.

“Some people say that’s a hatchet,” Mr. McCain said. “It’s a hatchet. Then I’ll get out the scalpel.”

Source: McCain Presses Obama in Last Debate

Photo credit: Getty Images North America, New York Times

Barack Obama and John McCain, Final Presidential Debate, October 15, 2008