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Last night’s final debate between the two major party candidates did not change the poll numbers despite being the most “spirited and combative” (NY Times) of all their encounters. Most viewers concluded that Barack Obama managed to keep his cool in the face of a belligerent John McCain. Early in the debate, McCain introduced a running theme of “Joe the Plumber” and how he believed Obama’s policies would hurt him. Joe the Plumber is Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber who met Obama in Ohio recently. Under Obama’s tax plan, small-business owners and individuals earning more than $250,000 a year, like Joe, could see an increase in taxes. A yearly salary of a quarter million dollars is no small amount but McCain pressed the point repeatedly using the term “Joe the plumber.” Moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS news, the debate also focused on the current economic crisis, health care, negative campaigning, Vice Presidential candidates, Supreme court appointments and women’s reproductive rights. At one point during the debate, McCain lashed out saying that he was not George W Bush, and that if Obama wanted to run against Bush, he should have done so 4 years ago.

GUEST: John Nichols is a writer for the Nation Magazine, is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, and the co-founder of Free Press.