Joe the Plumber was of little use to John McCain - Los Angeles Times
Mere minutes into the final presidential debate, John McCain evoked the blue-collar man as a potential victim of Barack Obama's tax plan -- one that would prevent him from buying his own business and, as the Republican candidate put it, from "living the American dream."
Me, I want to know more. How much is ol' Joe pulling in, anyway? What company is he trying to buy? A two-man operation or, say, Roto-Rooter?
But what we do know, for sure now -- courtesy of Joe the Plumber -- is that Obama is a liberal and McCain is a conservative. So thank you, Joe the Plumber.

Never before have the two men been in such direct opposition, both in policy and in personality. Obama remained cool, even in the face of what seemed like intentional baiting by McCain, who on several occasions praised Obama's "eloquence" as if it were a synonym for duplicity.

A half-hour in, Schieffer asked the question everyone was waiting for -- would the two candidates now make the same accusations their campaigns and running mates have been leveling?
McCain strangely chose to go on the attack and said he was disappointed at Obama's silence in the face of comments that compared him to George Wallace.
Obama pointed out that he had repudiated the remarks and moved quickly to the high road, arguing that voters were less concerned with the candidates' hurt feelings than with solving economic problems.
"I don't mind being attacked for the next three weeks," Obama said, sounding like the embodiment of benevolence. "What the American people can't afford, though, is four more years of failed policy."
It's hard to imagine that McCain had planned to give the Illinois senator such an easy lob; it allowed Obama not only to look gracious, but to point out that all the recent polls indicate that Americans feel McCain has been too negative.