LIVEBLOG: The Final Presidential Debate

The Briefing Room will liveblog the third and final presidential debate Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET.

It’s the last time Barack Obama and John McCain will be together on stage before Election Day, Nov. 4. With Obama ahead in every national poll, expect McCain to try to shake up the race. He has already vowed to “whip [Obama’s] ‘you-know-what.'” Reporters got a look at Obama’s debate spin earlier Wednesday, when the Drudge Report posted an Obama memo that calls the debate “McCain’s last chance to turn this race around.”

The debate topic is domestic policy. Expect both candidates to spell out how they would address economic woes brought on by the home foreclosure and credit crisis. Also expect the candidates to tussle over taxes. While McCain has proposed extending all of the income tax cuts championed by President Bush, Obama has said that he would focus on reducing the tax burden on the middle- and low-income Americans. Obama has proposed using revenue from a repeal of tax cuts for upper-income earners to pay for his universal healthcare plan.

The debate, to be held in Hempstead, N.Y., will last for 90 minutes. CBS’s Bob Schieffer will be the moderator.

8:55 p.m.: Welcome to The Briefing Room’s liveblog of Tuesday’s debate.

The debate hall is going through its final preparations. Officials of Hofstra University, the debate’s host, are addressing the crowd in the debate hall right now.

In the final hours before the debate, close advisers to both of the candidates talked about their expectations for Tuesday night.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said that Obama “called John McCain out” last week when he urged the Republican to make attacks about Weather Underground bomber William Ayers to Obama’s face instead of through advertisements or campaign speeches. Palin, in an interview with New Hampshire’s WMUR, suggested that McCain may take Obama up on his offer.

Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod denied that Obama was “goading” McCain. Axelrod said that Obama would be prepared to answer attacks made about Ayers during the debate.

8:58 p.m.: Moderator Bob Schieffer is on the stage. He says that he regrets that the late Tim Russert, former host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” is no longer covering politics.

He says that Russert would have asked, “Can you believe this?”

Schieffer said that he would have said that he couldn’t believe it, and he added : “This is the most exciting campaign that I can recall, and I’ve covered a lot of them.”

Schieffer has taken his seat. The candidates are now about to take the stage. When they come on stage, they’ll sit together with Schieffer at a table.

9:16 p.m.: The first discussion turns into a debate over the effect of Obama’s tax plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts on high-income earners on “Joe the Plumber.”

Obama talked to Joe in Ohio this week and said that he hopes to “spread the wealth around,” McCain noted.

“The whole premise behind Sen. Obama’s plans are class warfare,” McCain said.”Why would you want to increase anybody’s taxes right now, when we have such a tough time?”

Obama acknowledged that while he would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans, wealthy Americans would indeed pay a little more in taxes.

“Exxon Mobil, which made $12 billion in record profits, they can afford to pay a little more, so that ordinary families who are hurting out there — they need a break,” Obama said. “Look nobody likes taxes. I would prefer none of us would have to pay taxes, including myself.”

When Obama brought up that mega-investor Warren Buffett supported him and his middle-class tax cut plan, McCain responded by saying that we’re talking about Joe the Plumber.

9:24 p.m.: Obama brings out his main attack on McCain in a discussion over the federal budget and spending.

“Pursuing the same kinds of policies that we’ve pursued over the last eight years is not going to bring down the deficit, and Sen. McCain voted for four out of five of President Bush’s budgets,” Obama said.

Obama commended McCain for showing independence on a number of issues, including torture and climate change. But the Democrat said that on economic issues, McCain has proposed essentially eight more years of Bush policies.

McCain responded by saying that he’s not President Bush. He added that Obama should have run four years ago if he wanted to run against Bush. The remark drew a chuckle from some in the crowd.

McCain also repeated a line he’s used several times already in the debate.

“Americans are hurting tonight and they’re angry,” he said. McCain used it to claim that he was the candidate who would represent a new direction, one that would lead to lower government spending.

9:40 p.m.: McCain and Obama just spent about 15 minutes — a sixth of the debate — trading charges over who has run a more negative campaign and whether William Ayers and ACORN are relevant issues to the campaign.

McCain opened his attack about Obama’s associations by saying that he didn’t care about Ayers.

“I don’t care an old washed up terrorist,” McCain said. “We need to know the full extent of that relationship.” He added that Americans also need to know more about Obama’s relationship with ACORN, the community organizer group under fire for submitting invalid voter registration forms.

Obama, who shook his head as McCain brought up the associations, responded by laying out his involvement with Ayers and ACORN. He said that he has repudiated Ayers’s work 40 years ago, and that he served a decade ago with Ayers on a charity board that was funded by a friend and ambassador under Ronald Reagan and that also included several Republicans. Obama said his involvement with ACORN happened years ago when he worked with the U.S. Justice Department on a motor-voter registration law.

Obama then downplayed those attacks and said that the American people care more about issues.

9:50 p.m.: The two candidates resolved little between themselves during the exchange over negative campaigning.

When McCain prodded Obama to directly repudiate Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) for comparing the McCain campaign to the 1968 campaign of segregationist George Wallace, Obama said that his campaign had already called the remarks inappropriate.

When Obama said that McCain wasn’t sticking to the facts on Ayers and ACORN, McCain said that his facts were the ones that were true.

Both were clearly prepared to discuss the issue. McCain was the one to bring up both ACORN and Ayers. McCain noted that even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Obama’s former rival, had asked about Ayers. Obama spent several minutes explaining his relationships to them before pivoting to the associations that he saw as more relevant to the campaign. At that point, Obama name-dropped Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on foreign policy and Warren Buffett on the economy.

10:06 p.m.: McCain tried to depict the debate over healthcare as one about more government and less government. He said that Obama’s plan would lead to more government, and perhaps even to a single-payer, Canada-style system.

Obama several times tried to explain the effect of his plan. He denied his plan would lead to a single-payer, government system and said it would serve to lower healthcare costs. He then hit McCain for proposing a healthcare plan that would provide a tax credit to individuals yet tax the healthcare benefit provided by employers.

10:13 p.m.: McCain is emptying out his oppo research binder tonight. He goes on the attack on abortion, accusing Obama of dodging a tough vote on partial-birth abortion. He noted that Obama, as an Illinois state senator, voted “present” on a bill that would have banned such abortions.

Obama said that he voted present because he supported a ban, but didn’t support that ban because it didn’t include an exception for the life of the mother. Then, as he has done several times already during the debate, he tried to find common ground between those on one side of an issue and those on the other side. He talked about finding ways to reduce abortions, through education, adoption and other measures, that both parties could support.

10:20 p.m.: As striking the differences between the candidates have been tonight, just as striking have been the two candidates’ facial expressions.

As Obama talks, McCain has been seen smirking, widening his eyes and even rolling them. As McCain talks, particularly when he has gone on the attack, Obama has shook his head at times and smiled broadly at other times.

It’ll be interesting to see how uncommitted voters react to the candidates’ body language. At the very least, the body language will provide more parody fodder for “Saturday Night Live.”

10:30 p.m.: Here are the shorter versions of the candidates’ closing statements.

McCain: “All of the promises… will be based on whether you can trust us or not.”

Obama: “The biggest risk we could take right now is to adopt the same failed policies and same failed politics that we’ve seen in the last eight years and expect different results.”

10:34 p.m.: And that’s a wrap.

The story lines coming out of this debate will be: 1) Joe the Plumber; 2) McCain’s attacks, particularly on Ayers and ACORN, and Obama’s defense; and 3) the candidates’ body language.

Both candidates sought to appeal to middle-class Americans such as Joe, whose name came up during several different discussions.

McCain took Obama up on his offer and made attacks over Obama’s to his opponent’s face. McCain was left wanting a fuller accounting, while Obama first sought to explain them before he downplayed them.

Both candidates were much more expressive in their reactions tonight. McCain at times seemed exasperated with Obama’s answers, breathing audibly, sitting up straight and rolling his eyes. Obama’s head shaking seemed to convey frustration with McCain’s tone. The Democrat also smiled broadly during McCain attacks, which he seemed to expect.

The campaigns are now sending in their spin. We’ll keep track of it tonight and tomorrow as it comes in.

Stay with The Briefing Room and TheHill.com throughout the rest of the election for the latest coverage of the presidential race and the battle for control of Congress.