McCain presses Obama in sharp exchange

After heated talk of campaign tactics, McCain and Obama get down to the subject on everyone's mind -- the economy

Sen. John McCain repeatedly tried to put Sen. Barack Obama on the defensive Wednesday in the final debate of the marathon presidential race, accusing him of seeking to raise taxes, associating with a former terrorist and engaging in an unmatched barrage of negative campaigning.

Obama, pivoting away from McCain's critiques, accused his opponent of trying to divert attention from the nation's ailing economy, refocusing the debate to his central assertion about McCain: that the represented a continuation of Bush administration economic policies. It was a line of attack that McCain was prepared for.

"Senator Obama, I am not President Bush," McCain said. "If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

He asserted emphatically, "I want to take the country in a different direction."

Obama brushed aside McCain's claim to full political independence.

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

Their exchanges were the most spirited of their three debates, with Obama repeatedly accusing McCain of relying on attack politics to distract Americans from the nation's economic crisis on a day when the Dow plunged 733 points.

Saying that negative campaigning had been the "primary focus" of McCain's campaign, Obama said the race should instead center on what Americans "deserve over the next four weeks," adding "that we talk about what's most pressing to them -- the economic crisis."

The two also had a heated exchange about Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. the civil rights leader who last weekend issued a blistering statement that said the angry rhetoric at the rallies of McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, reminded him of the era of George Wallace, the late segregationist governor of Alabama. McCain, who has often cited Lewis as a man he greatly admires, said he was surprised by the statement, and Wednesday night asked Obama to repudiate it.

Obama responded that Lewis had made the statement "unprompted by my campaign" because he was troubled by what he was hearing. "In which all the public reports indicated that people were shouting, when my name came up, things like 'terrorist' and 'kill him.' And then your running mate didn't mention, didn't stop, didn't say, 'Hold on a second, that's kind of out of line."'

Nonetheless, Obama said, Lewis "inappropriately drew a comparison between what was happening there and what was happening in the civil rights movement."

McCain repeated the principles of his plan to deal with the current financial crisis, a combination of tax cuts and relaxed rules for withdrawals from retirement accounts, along with a freeze on federal spending. He also repeated his call from a week ago for the government to purchase distressed mortgages and allow banks and homeowners to renegotiate them on more lenient terms.

A harsher tone

The caustic exchanges were a sharp departure from the first two debates, and the start of Wednesday's debate offered little clue to what was ahead, when McCain looked straight at Obama and addressed him as "Senator."

Repeatedly trying to deflect from McCain's critiques, Obama often returned to the economic struggles of Americans, and stressed 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.