I have just finished watching the final debate between Senators Obama and McCain.

McCain started out strong and mentioned Joe the plumber from Ohio, to whom Sen. Obama said the other day he had to “spread the wealth.” Joe was mentioned 15 times by McCain and 5 times by Obama.

Most memorable line in the debate came from McCain after Obama had been comparing him to Bush and saying a McCain presidency would be another Bush presidency. The answer: “I’m not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago”. Good stuff, but the punch was dodged by Obama when he responded that if he confuses the two it’s because McCain’s policy and voting record are so much like Bush’s.

Most memorable verbal slip of the night was when McCain called Sen. Obama “Senator Government” but immediately corrected himself and it became clear it was a verbal slip as his next phrase contained the word “government”. It was funny, though.

McCain was much stronger than he has been before, addressing Sen. Obama personally several times, but once he scored a point he moved on to something else instead of punching at the same spot.

Obama was able to deflect the Ayers problem with his usual answers. McCain brought up the fact he had invited Obama to ten Town Hall debates and this would have been one way to have cut down on the negative attacks. He brought up the fact when Obama was back in the pack he agreed and signed a pledge to use public financing for this campaign if he won the primary and reneged on that pledge once he became the nominee. Again, he didn’t keep with the body punches except to say Obama has run the most expensive campaign in history.

The two compared tax and health plans, with McCain asking how anyone could even contemplate raising taxes in an economy such as we have now. He missed his chance to better explain Obama’s health and tax policies and better compare them with his plans, but time constraints do that.

All in all this debate seems to have been stronger for McCain but actually not the knock-out punch the pollsters and pundits tell us he so desperately needs. It was probably a draw because Obama only had to show up and McCain had to really beat him to get any credit. Draw goes to Obama.

But I’m not so sure of that. I watched the debate on Fox and Frank Luntz had a focus group of 23 undecideds. None of them preferred either candidate when they were selected (they said). At the end when asked how many minds were made up only four people raised their hands and all four said they had decided on Obama.

Comments from some of the other 19 suggest these people are leaning to McCain. One man said he is not voting for a good debater but for someone who will best serve the country, and that person is McCain, even though he didn’t raise his hand to say he supported him.

We shall see what we shall see come Nov. 5, and I hope it doesn’t go any longer than that. I think you know what I mean when I say that.

When video is available I will post it for those who missed it. By the way, Bob Schieffer was the best of all the moderators in this year’s debates, bar none.

Here are some of the debate exerpts for now: