John Baer: Something different, but nothing new

IT WAS ROUGH and tumble, aggressive and far-reaching, and because it was totally different from prior debates, it was John McCain's best showing yet.

Whether it means anything, whether his smash-mouth tactics matter, well, that's another question. And I suspect the answer is no.

But McCain no doubt delighted his base with a frontal attack on Barack Obama on everything from Bill Ayers to ACORN to abortion, from taxes and spending to negative ads, from earmarks to tying McCain to George W. Bush.

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

He repeatedly said that Obama wants to raise taxes and increase government spending, at one point comparing him to Herbert Hoover governing the nation into a Great Depression.

McCain even, inadvertently it seemed, called Obama "Senator Government."

It was an often angry, sometimes manic McCain trying to knock Obama off his cool at a time when voters are telling pollsters that they want a calm and steady hand steering the nation out of its economic crisis.

Obama was his usual reserved self, often smiling and shaking his head instead of counterpunching. He patiently, even indulgently, explained and defended his programs and his campaign.

All this at the third and final debate moderated by CBS News veteran anchorman Bob Schieffer at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, Long Island.

As voters gravitate toward Obama, McCain sought to recast himself for, I don't know, maybe the fourth or fifth time in the race.

He was, you'll recall, the experienced candidate, the maverick candidate, the populist candidate (gas-tax holiday), and now he's the attack candidate or the fighting underdog.

A few times he just seemed oddly missing.

During an exchange about nasty ads and raucous rally crowds (Obama noted that GOP rallies included people yelling "terrorist" at the mention of Obama's name and "kill him"), McCain, while condeming such conduct, said, "Let me just say categorically, I'm proud of the people who come to our rallies."

Oooh-kay.

And in answering a question about why Sarah Palin would be a better president than Joe Biden, McCain said it was because she's a "role model to women" and "she's a reformer . . . she's a reformer through and through . . . she understands reform . . . and her husband's a pretty tough guy, too."

Dizzying.

I thought that McCain scored on accusing Obama of record spending on negative TV ads after Obama had said he'd accept federal campaign funding and then opted out when he realized he could raise more than the government can provide.

But I also thought that Obama played it just right, offering a calm defense of himself and his programs, and staying focused on broader issues.

They argued over health-care plans and the economy.

McCain wants to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent to stimulate job growth. Obama wants to cut middle-class taxes while promising no tax increases for anyone making less than $250,000

a year.

Obama called McCain's plan the same old stuff that helped get us where we are.

McCain saw Obama's plan as a socialistic redistribution of wealth.

It's a battle between the old GOP trickle-down economic theory - if those at the top do well so will those further down the food chain - and Obama's argument that we should try growing the economy from the bottom up.

Who knows what's right, given current economic conditions ?

But I'd note that Paul Krugman, Princeton economics professor and New York Times columnist - and yeah, I know, he's a Bush-hating lefty - who just won the Nobel Prize in economics this week, said that Obama "makes sense" and that McCain offers more of the same.

I note this because the guy just won the Nobel Prize in economics.

Last night's debate offered something different but nothing new. I'll be surprised if it alters the race. *

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