A debate too late?

So while trawling the news sites I spotted a common theme. Even if you just scan these articles from SkyNews.com, Guardian.co.uk and CNN.com you might just work out what it is.

Apparently its do or die for McCain.

While it may draw in more attention and better ratings to hype the last debate as the climax of the grueling 22 month long election campaign it really is not. McCain's moment to turn this election around came and went with the last debate.

Before the last debate on the 7th of October a CBS poll had Obama up by 3 points. Today CBS have released a poll showing Obama up by 14 points. While it appears voters slightly favoured Obama in the last debate it should generally be considered a tie.

The only thing McCain could have done to top the massive slide towards Obama is deliver a killer punch at the town hall meeting last Tuesday. He failed.

Now for reasons I shall go into later McCain's numbers are beginning to look like they are going to completely bottom out. If McCain had turned around the poll number from last week it would have been a feat matched only by Ronald Reagan in 1980. If McCain can turn around this weeks polls numbers it will go down in US electoral history as the greatest ever comeback and will need much more than a victory in a third debate of three.

A tectonic shift would have to occur. A terrorist attack. A massive scandal. An assassination (God forbid). These are the scale of event that could move this election of its current course. Over the 15 or so rounds if McCain gets zinger after zinger it won't change the fact thats he's in the same party as George Bush, Democrats do better in economic crisis and for weeks now Obama has been ahead while early voting is taking place across key states.

A big win for McCain in the last debate would not have been enough on its own to win the election, it would have had to have been followed up by another big win tomorrow to give him a chance of victory. McCain's big win didn't come last week and as such that was his last stand.

This debate tomorrow should be interesting viewing, mostly because the note McCain will attempt to strike will be so telling. His last three weeks campaign will most likely be his political epitaph. Will he want to hit Obama hard and fight hard for an almost impossible goal or will he focus on the issues important to him in the hope he will leave a strong political legacy?

I imagine he will try to do a little both. I suggest we all watch to find out.