Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama meet at Hofstra University for the third and final presidential debate. (Reuters)

After weeks of economic upheaval and a day that brought another precipitous drop in the stock market, Sens. John McCain (R) and Barack Obama (D) tonight held a final presidential debate marked by a combative series of disputes on abortion, the economic crisis and which man has run the more negative campaign.

McCain entered the night trailing in the polls and needing a clear victory to reverse the direction of his campaign, which has been hurt by the continuing focus on the troubled economy. The GOP nominee has struggled to separate himself from the policies of the unpopular Bush administration, and tonight he repeatedly made clear that he was his own man and would go in a "new direction."

"Senator Obama, I am not President Bush," McCain said, after the Democrat pointed out that he had voted for Bush's budget proposals. "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

That forceful line did not deter Obama from his most frequent avenue of attack. "If I've occasionally mistaken your policies for George Bush's policies, it's because ... you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush," he said.

The tone of the debate was more aggressive than the previous two, as McCain came prepared to criticize Obama on seemingly every front and put a dent in the Democrat's growing lead. Twice, McCain sarcastically noted Obama's "eloquence" and suggested that he was fudging the issues. While Obama on several occasions was forced to rebut McCain's attacks, none seemed to visibilty throw the Democrat off stride or mark a campaign-changing moment.

McCain also 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 fraudulent voter registrations.

Having been criticized in previous sessions for not discussing the middle class, McCain sought tonight to identify with the common man, specifically "Joe the Plumber," an Ohioan whom Obama met on the campaign trail this week and who asked whether the Democrats' plans meant his taxes would go up. McCain made repeated references to the plumber in taking potshots at Obama and his economic proposals.

There was considerable speculation in the run-up to the debate over whether McCain would raise the subject of Obama's relationship with Ayers, a subject of McCain campaign ads and campaign speeches by Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's vice presidential running mate.

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. (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.)

The subjects of Ayers and ACORN arose as moderator Bob Schieffer broached 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."

McCain singled out Rep. John Lewis' (D-Ga.) statement associating McCain and 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.

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 spots. And after McCain spoke extensively about Ayers and ACORN, he concluded by saying that his campaign was really about "getting this economy back on track," prompting derisive laughter from Obama.

McCain and Obama also had their most substantive exchange of the campaign on abortion and the Supreme Court, as they were asked whether they would only appoint Justices who agreed with them on Roe v. Wade.

McCain, an abortion foe, said he "would never impose a litmus test on any nominee to the court," but that he thought Roe v. Wade "was a bad decision."

"I think it's true that we shouldn't support any litmus test," Obama agreed, though he added that he " believes that Roe v. Wade was rightly decided" and that "women are in the best position to make this decision" about abortion.

McCain argued that we must "change the culture of America. Those of us who are proudly pro-life understand that."

He then accused Obama of aligning himself with the "extreme pro-abortion" movement while in the state Senate for not supporting a bill that required the provision of life-saving treatment to infants. Obama called the charge "not true" and suggested McCain had distorted the details.

McCain sought to distance himself from the Bush administration and its policies on the first question, which asked each candidate to say why his economic proposal was better than the other's.

Americans "are angry, and they have every reason to be angry, and they want this country to go in a new direction," McCain said.

Describing his plan to have the government buy up home mortgages, McCain said, "I am convinced that ... we ought to put the homeowners first, and I'm disappointed that [Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson and others have not made that their first priority."

Obama, as he did in previous debates, focused on the middle class, saying they need a "rescue package" of their own. Obama added that he agreed with McCain on the idea of buying up mortgages, but disagreed on how it should be done, saying the Republican's plan "could be a giveaway to banks."

McCain then took his first real shot at Obama, criticizing the Democrat for an incident in Ohio yesterday during which he told a plumber concerned about a tax increase that he needed to "spread the wealth around." McCain said he stood on the side of "Joe the Plumber." (The Associated Press reports that the now-famous man is Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohioan who is looking to buy a plumbing business.)

McCain strongly reiterated his separation from the Bush administration during discussion of the second question, on spending and the deficit.

McCain said he would "have an across the board spending freeze," an idea that Obama mocked as impractical. As for specific programs he would cut, McCain cited ethanol subsidies and wasteful defense spending. Obama suggested he would cut money for the Medicare Advantage program, which sends cash to private insurers.

Schieffer next brought up the two ticket-mates, asking McCain and Obama why their vice presidential candidates were best.

Obama called Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) "one of the best public servants in this country" who has "never forgotten where he came from" and whose "consistent pattern throughout his career is to fight for the little guy."

McCain then gave tribute to Palin, his running mate. "Americans have gotten to know Sarah Palin. They know that she's a role model to women and reformers everywhere," he said. "She's a reformer through and through, and it's time we had that breath of fresh air coming into the nation's capital."

Asked whether Palin was qualified to be president, Obama demurred, saying: "Obviously that's going to be up to the American people" and that she was a talented politician.

McCain said Biden is "qualified in many respects, but I think he's been wrong on many national security issues," criticizing the Delaware Senator's "cockamamie" idea for dividing Iraq into pieces.

McCain and Obama followed with a foray into trade policy, with the two men disagreeing over whether the Colombia free trade agreement should be ratified; McCain supports it, Obama doesn't.

"I don't think there's any doubting Senator Obama wants to restrict trade and raise taxes, and the last president who tried that was Herbert Hoover," McCain said.

On health care, Obama suggested his plan was both the best way to expand coverage and cut costs. McCain accused Obama of wanting to fine small businesses -- including the aforementioned "Joe the Plumber" -- that didn't provide health insurance, while Obama said that wasn't true and that small businesses were exempt.

Obama then criticized McCain's health care plan for imposing taxes on health care benefits people receive from their employers; Mccain retorted, after again referencing the famous "Joe," that "95 percent of people in America" would be better off financially under his plan.

The faceoff at Hofstra University may have represented McCain's last and best chance to reverse the course of a contest that has slipped away from him over the last month. As bad economic news has mounted -- with titans of Wall Street disappearing and Congress passing a massive rescue package -- the Republican nominee has seen his electoral standing slip while voters migrate to the Democratic party and Obama, the candidate they increasingly prefer to handle the financial crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 733 points today, the second-largest point-drop in the Dow's century in existence, amid continued fears of a prolonged recession. That backdrop was fueled an even more intense emphasis on economic policy at a debate that was already designed to focus on domestic concerns.

Both of the first two McCain-Obama debates included extensive discussions of foreign policy. Polls taken after the first two sessions -- one at the University of Mississippi on Sept. 26, and one at Belmont University on Oct. 7 -- suggested that viewers thought Obama had won both meetings.

Before the general election debates began, friends and foes alike said Obama's primary task was to convince voters that he was up to the job of being president. McCain's goal was to convince voters of the opposite, that the Democrat was too inexperienced and too naïve to hold the nation's top job in these serious times.

Whether due to their respective debate performances or the larger issue climate, recent poll numbers suggest Obama has been largely successful and McCain hasn't. In the most recent Washington Post/ABC News survey, more respondents actually rated Obama a "safe" choice for president than did so for McCain, a 26-year Senate veteran.

The poll showed Obama leading McCain by 10 points on a national level. A New York Times/CBS News survey released today put Obama's lead at 14 points, while several other surveys have pegged the Democrat's advantage in the single digits. Perhaps more importantly, a host of polls have shown Obama tied or leading McCain in up to a dozen states won by Bush in 2004, while McCain now trails in every state that voted Democratic in the last cycle.

Barack Obama widened his lead considerably over John McCain in four key battleground states during the past three weeks, providing further evidence that the economic crisis has greatly enhanced the Democrat's advantage with just 21 days left before Election Day.

Obama holds double-digit margins over McCain in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin and carries a nine-point advantage over his Republican rival in Colorado, according to polling conducted by Quinnipiac University for washingtonpost.com and the Wall Street Journal.

Obama's ascendancy in these key states mirrors his growing lead in national polling. The latest Washington Post/ABC News survey put Obama at 53 percent to McCain's 43 percent, while the daily Gallup tracking poll showed Obama holding a similar lead of 51 percent to 41 percent on Monday.

The latest polling confirms that the financial crisis and stock market crash that has gripped Wall Street and Washington over the past month has increased the importance of economic matters to voters -- particularly in the industrial Midwest -- and accrued almost exclusively to Obama's benefit.

In Michigan, more than six in ten voters said the economy was the "single most important issue" in deciding their vote. Among likely voters, Obama increased his lead over McCain from a four-point edge in a late September Quinnipiac poll to a whopping 16-point lead in the most recent survey.

Obama's 54 percent to 38 percent lead in Michigan helps to explain why McCain decided to pull down his ads and pull out the majority of his campaign staff from the Wolverine State last week -- choosing to fight, instead, in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Maine.

The data was similar in Wisconsin and Minnesota where Obama gained 10 points and nine points, respectively, in his margin over McCain since the September Quinnipiac poll; the Illinois senator led McCain in Wisconsin 54 percent to 37 percent, and held a 51 percent to 40 percent edge in Minnesota.

In both states, 58 percent of the sample cited the economy as the leading issue affecting their vote -- nearly six times as many as named any other issue. The Wisconsin number represents a significant shift from the seven-point advantage the Quinnipiac poll showed for Obama in the Badger State in the third week of September. It also stands in contrast to other recent poll data, including a CNN/Time poll done earlier this month, that showed Obama leading 51 percent to 46 percent.

The surveys also indicate that Obama is significantly more trusted on economic issues than McCain. In Wisconsin, 53 percent said Obama "better understands the economy" while just 32 percent chose McCain. The numbers were not much better in Michigan (52 percent Obama/35 percent McCain), Minnesota (49/34) or Colorado (51/39).

A majority of voters in each state said McCain had not shown "effective leadership" in dealing with the financial meltdown. Throughout the past several weeks, McCain has condemned financial executives on Wall Street, offered a few proposed remedies for the crisis, and briefly suspended his campaign to return to Washington to take part in White House talks over a $700 billion rescue plan.

McCain also is being badly hamstrung by a national political environment tipped heavily against his party. Just one in four voters in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin approve of the job President Bush is doing -- a number reflected in the Post/ABC News national poll where just 23 percent of voters voiced approval for Bush's performance.

For all of the media focus on the presidential debates -- the third and last of which will be held tomorrow at Hofstra University in New York -- the encounters seem to have had little effect in persuading voters.

In each of the four states, between 71 percent and 75 percent of voters said they watched the second presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., last Tuesday night. And yet, in each of the four states more than eight in ten voters said the debate did not change their vote.

Nearly half of the voters in each state thought Obama had done a better job in the Nashville debate while less than one in five voters said McCain had won the debate.

The Republican problems in these four battleground states weren't limited to the top of the ticket.

In Colorado's open seat Senate race, Democratic Rep. Mark Udall holds a commanding 54 percent to 40 percent lead over former Republican Rep. Bob Schaffer. In Minnesota, Sen. Norm Coleman (R) has slipped into a dead heat with his Democratic opponent Al Franken; Franken stands at 38 percent to 36 percent for Coleman and 18 percent for independent candidate Dean Barkley.

The polls were conducted from Oct. 8-12. The sample sizes were: 1,019 likely voters in Minnesota, 1,201 likely voters in Wisconsin, 1,088 likely voters in Colorado and 1,043 likely voters in Michigan. Each has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

In the first presidential campaign involving an African American nominee of a major party, both candidates have agreed on this much: They would rather not dwell on the subject of race.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Virginia hasn't backed a Democrat for president in 44 years, but economic concerns and changing demographics are giving Sen. Barack Obama a chance to steal the once reliably red state from Republicans.

Polls earlier this year showed Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, leading Obama, his Democratic rival, in Virginia by a healthy margin.

A Virginia Commonwealth University poll taken May 12-18 had McCain leading 47 percent to 39 percent.

But as the financial crisis has shaken voters' confidence in the economy, Obama has begun to open a lead in the state, as he has done in other battleground states.

The latest CNN poll of polls has Obama leading McCain 49 percent to 45 percent. A CNN/TIME/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted September 28-30 shows Obama with an even bigger lead over McCain, 53 percent to 44 percent. The CNN poll's margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Polls show that voters have more confidence in Obama to handle the economic crisis than they do in McCain, and are more likely to blame Republicans for the recent turmoil than Democrats.

Beside an advantage on the economy, Obama is also benefiting from a demographic shift that has reshaped Virginia politics.

For the last 10 presidential elections, Republicans have been able to bank on Virginia delivering its 13 electoral votes to the GOP. President Bush won Virginia by 8 percentage points in both 2000 and 2004, and President Bill Clinton was never able to capture the state when he ran in 1992 and 1996.

But the explosive growth of Northern Virginia in the last decade has changed the state's electorate. Drawn by government jobs in nearby Washington and high-tech jobs in the Dulles corridor, the growing population in Northern Virginia is more liberal than the mostly rural southern portion of the state, which has remained reliably Republican.

In 2000, Bush carried Northern Virginia 49 percent to 47 percent, but in 2004, Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, carried the area 51 percent to 48 percent.

Virginia "is not as red as people think," said Doc Thompson, a conservative talk show host for WRVA radio. "A third of the population in Northern Virginia is pretty liberal. A lot of people are buying into [Obama's] notion of change."

Virginia Democrats have been able to exploit the changes in the electorate into statewide electoral success after years in which the Republicans had a virtual lock on the state.

In fact, Virginia Republicans have not won a statewide race since Mark Warner, a former mobile phone company executive, captured the governorship for the Democrats in 2001 by emphasizing economic growth.

Democrat Tim Kaine, who was Warner's lieutenant governor, succeeded Warner in 2005. And in what may have been the most surprising result of the 2006 election cycle, Democrat Jim Webb defeated the incumbent Republican George Allen in the race for one of Virginia's seats in the U.S. Senate.

The trend favoring the Democrats is expected to continue this year, which is expected to help drive Virginia Democrats to the polls.

The extremely popular Warner is almost certain to win this year's race against another former governor, Republican Jim Gilmore, to replace Virginia's long-standing Republican senator, John Warner, who is retiring. (The two Warners are not related, and John Warner was unopposed in 2002.)

A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted in late September found Warner leading Gilmore by 30 points, and Warner's victory would give Democrats control of both of Virginia's seats in the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1970.

While conservatives may be demoralized by Gilmore's poor showing, McCain may also face eroding support from Virginia conservatives for his recent proposals for the government to become heavily involved in the U.S. economy, said Thompson, the radio talk show host.

During Tuesday night's presidential debate, McCain suggested that the government directly buy up to $300 billion in home mortgages to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

Thompson said that proposal, along with his support for a $700 billion bailout package to help Wall Street firms that McCain voted for last week, are two signs that McCain is breaking from the free-market principles that Virginia conservatives support and not stopping "the march toward socialism" that has begun since the economic crisis started.

"They missed a real opportunity, certainly, in Virginia with my listeners who say they want someone who is fiscally conservative," said Thompson, who added that he's considering voting for a third-party candidate. "They could have come out and said, 'no more spending.' "

 

updated 20 minutes ago

Debate highlights stark differences

(CNN) -- Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama went head-to-head on the economy, domestic policy and foreign affairs as they faced off in their second presidential debate.

The debate was set up like a town hall meeting, and the audience was made up of undecided voters.

The candidates spoke directly to each other at times, but at other times they spoke as if their opponent were not in the room.

The debate over foreign policy boiled down to who has the better judgment.

McCain said he knows how to handle foreign affairs and questioned Obama's ability to do so.

"My judgment is something that I think I have a record to stand on," McCain said.

McCain said the "challenge" facing a president considering using military force "is to know when to go in and when not."

Obama questioned McCain's judgment in
supporting the invasion of Iraq.

"When Sen. McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy -- we would be greeted as liberators. That was the wrong judgment," he said.

Obama vowed to get Osama bin Laden and defeat al Qaeda.

"We will kill bin Laden, we will crush al Qaeda," he said.

McCain responded in equally strong terms: "I'll get him. I know how to get him. But I am not going to telegraph my punches as Sen. Obama did."

McCain and Obama seemed to agree that there were situations when the United States should be willing to use force to stop a humanitarian crisis, even when America was not directly threatened.

Earlier, Obama said the country has a "moral commitment as well as an economic imperative" to address the health care problem.

The Illinois senator said health care is a "crushing burden" for small businesses and is "breaking family budgets."

Obama and McCain both proposed computerizing medical records to reduce costs and limit errors.

McCain argued that Obama's plan included fines for small businesses that did not insure their employees, while his was based on "choice" rather than "mandates."

Obama said health care was a "right," while McCain said it was a "responsibility."

Obama's health care plan includes the creation of a national health insurance program for individuals who do not have employer-provided health care and who do not qualify for other existing federal programs. His plan does not mandate individual coverage for all Americans, but requires coverage for all children.

McCain opposes federally mandated universal coverage. He believes competition will improve the quality of health insurance.

McCain says he would reform the tax code to offer choices beyond employee-based health insurance coverage. Under the plan, all taxpayers would receive a direct refundable tax credit of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families

During the first half of the debate, the candidates focused on their plans to fix the economy.

McCain said the system in Washington "cries out for bipartisanship" and pushed his record as a reformer.

He and Obama were asked how voters could trust either one of them to fix the economy when both parties contributed to the financial crisis. Watch the candidates explain why they can be trusted »

Obama said "while it is true that nobody is completely innocent here, we have had over the last eight years the biggest increases in deficit spending and national debt in our history."

Obama said the country is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression as he began his second presidential debate with Sen. John McCain.

He blamed President Bush and McCain for the crisis, saying they had worked to "strip away regulation."

McCain proposed having the government buy up and renegotiate bad home loans to stabilize the property market. Watch McCain talk about his plan for the economy »

He admitted the plan would be expensive but said it was necessary.

McCain also hammered away at his rival's tax policies, saying that "nailing down Sen. Obama's various tax proposals is like nailing Jello to the wall." Watch McCain slam Obama's tax plan »

"I am not in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. I am in favor of leaving the tax rates alone," McCain said.

McCain charged that "Obama's secret that you don't know" is that he would increase taxes on small business revenue, which he said would lead to job cuts.

Obama shot back, saying "the Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one." Watch Obama talk about his plan for the middle class »

"Let's be clear about my tax plan and Sen. McCain's," he said. "I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of Americans."

In response to a question from moderator Tom Brokaw, McCain floated the names of billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- an Obama supporter -- and Meg Whitman, the former eBay executive who is one of his economic advisers.

Obama agreed that "Warren would be a pretty good choice," but declined to go into specifics about who he would nominate.

The debate was set up like a town hall, and the candidates are fielding questions from audience members, the moderator and Internet participants.

The two faced off at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

The debate follows several days of intense sparring from both nominees' camps.

Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," and Obama's campaign released an ad quoting editorials that called McCain "erratic" and "out of touch."

On Monday, the Obama campaign released an online documentary criticizing McCain over his involvement in the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s. Fact check: Did McCain intervene on behalf of Charles Keating?

Obama's campaign said Tuesday's town hall setting would benefit McCain.

Going into debates, campaigns generally try to build up expectations for their opponent while lowering the bar for their candidate.

"When it comes to sheer format, we enter today's debate the decided underdog," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton in a memo sent to reporters.

"John McCain does extremely well in town hall settings. It's been his favorite format throughout his career and we think that he will of course do very well."

Palin agreed that the format should play in McCain's favor, telling reporters on her campaign plane that she thinks "he'll be feeling very much at home."

The Alaska governor was watching the debate from a restaurant in Greenville, North Carolina.

Sen. Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, was watching the debate with his family at his home in Delaware.

(CNN) -- With just four weeks left until Election Day, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are preparing to face off in Tuesday night's high-stakes presidential debate.

The debate comes amid stepped-up attacks from both sides.

Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," and Obama's campaign released an ad quoting editorials that called McCain "erratic" and "out of touch."

On Monday, the Obama campaign released an online documentary that criticizes McCain over his involvement in the "Keating Five" scandal of the 1980s. Fact check: Did McCain intervene on behalf of Charles Keating?

The back-and-forth this weekend could set the stage for a more heated event than the first presidential debate -- one that had few sharp exchanges as both candidates largely stuck to their talking points.

At a campaign event in Denver, Colorado, last week, a voter asked McCain when he was going to "let the gloves come off and go after" Obama.

McCain's response: "How about Tuesday night?"

According to CNN's latest poll of polls, Obama leads McCain by six percentage points, 49-43.

The poll of polls consists of three national surveys: Marist (September 28-30), Gallup (October 2-4), and Diageo/Hotline (October 2-4). It does not have a sampling error.

As the economic crisis unfolded over the past month, Obama has reclaimed and solidified his lead.

The first presidential debate was supposed to be about foreign policy, but much of it focused on the economy.

That debate, which took place on September 26, came as talks over the government's bailout proposal imploded.

It wasn't clear if the first debate would even take place because McCain suspended his campaign, he said, to focus on the financial crisis. By the morning of the debate, he said he thought Congress had made enough progress on the bailout proposal for him to go ahead with the debate. Democrats blasted his move as a political stunt.

A national poll of people who watched the first presidential debate suggested that Obama came out on top, but there was overwhelming agreement that both Obama and McCain would be able to handle the job of president if elected.

Tuesday's debate is the second in the series of three presidential debates, but the format is much different than the other two events. Watch more on the upcoming debate »

The second debate, taking place in Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, will be set up like a town hall meeting.

The first and third debates are divided into approximately eight 10-minute segments. The moderator introduces each segment with an issue and gives each candidate two minutes to respond. Then there is a five-minute discussion period, when direct exchanges between the candidates occur.

The candidates on Tuesday will not only take questions from moderator Tom Brokaw of NBC News, but they'll also answer questions from people in the audience and from Internet participants.

The audience will be made up of uncommitted voters.

"These debates, town hall debates, are often very telling, they often provide the most dramatic moments in a campaign," said Bill Schneider, CNN's senior political analyst.

"If either of the candidates tries to go negative when you're with an audience of ordinary voters, they don't like it. We've heard them sometimes get very upset when the candidates start attacking each other, so that's going to be hard to do in a town hall format," he said.

At the beginning of the campaign season, McCain invited Obama to participate in joint town hall meetings, but the campaigns never reached agreement on details of the proposed meetings.

McCain spent time at his ranch near Sedona, Arizona, this weekend to prepare for Tuesday's debate. Obama spent time preparing with his staff at a resort in Asheville, North Carolina, on Sunday, taking a break for an afternoon rally.

He will spend most of Monday in preparation as well.