Your Guide To The Third 2008 Presidential Debate

The economy is top-of-mind with voters and is certain to be on the agenda tonight. Other issues to listen for: immigration, health care, education, social security, unemployment, taxes. Incumbents have a disadvantage when the economy is in the tank, and although McCain certainly isn't the incumbent, it is his party that's controlled the direction of the country -- almost singlehandedly -- for the better part of eight years.

The format is this: Bob Schieffer asks a question. Candidate 1 answers; Candidate 2 answers; then there's discussion. All in less than 10 minutes per question.

Be sure to have a piece of paper or an open word processing program... and make a note if a candidate actually answers the question asked (generally, they haven't). Usually candidates will "bridge" (a nicer way to say "spin") to a pre-rehearsed answer, otherwise known as a soundbite.

Listen for the gaffe, a polite way to say "foot in mouth." Of the two candidates in this debate, McCain is the more prone to gaffe or off-the-cuff. Gaffes wind up on YouTube. Not good.

Speaking of the answer, do you feel like the candidate is talking at you, down to you, or with you? That's important.

There's a great book for persuasive speakers, You've Got To Be Believed To Be Heard. That's true for salesmen, and it's true for politicians. If there are inconsistencies in a message, we believe "our eyes"--after all neural pathways from the eyes to the brain are 25 times more dense than from our ears.

Our eyes take in a lot of information, information relating to how comfortable the candidate appears to be: is he smiling (not the fake smile that doesn't reach to the eyes); does he use gestures or does he have a death grip on the podium? Is he energetic, enthusiastic?

Then there's how well he takes a punch. In TV debates, punches aren't literal, they're rhetorical. Does he snap back and show anger, or is he calm and collected?

John McCain was elected to Congress in 1982 and to the Senate in 1986. He ran for president in 2000. In the Senate, he has served on the Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. McCain is a supporter of the Iraq War; however, he butted heads with Bush on torture.

McCain is behind in the polls -- how far behind depends on the poll (range 4-12%) -- and tonight is his last chance to convince independents that he's their man. Having accepted public financing for the campaign, he doesn't have an (almost) unlimited advertising war chest like Obama, so he needs to make the most of this 90 minutes. He needs to be engaging, not defensive, brittle or waspish.

Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 and the U.S. Senate in 2002. He has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; as a member, he took a high-profile (solo) trip to Africa in August 2006. While running for the U.S. Senate, he spoke out against the war in Iraq; however, he later said that because he was not privy to the Senate intelligence reports, "I don't know" how I would have voted.

Obama has met the "are you qualified" challenge in the prior two debates, at least according to polling organizations. Tonight, he needs only to remain poised. It would be nice if he'd clearly acknowledge that his ambitious domestic policy is not tenable under current financial conditions -- but don't expect it.

Bob Schieffer, interim anchor of The CBS Evening News, has covered Washington for CBS News for more than 30 years and is one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have covered all four major beats in the nation's capital -- the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill.

He suggests that his questions will be more pointed than those in the prior two debates: "The time has come to be a little more specific... It will not embarrass me, if they go off in a different direction, to say `excuse me, could you focus on the question that I just asked?'""

Schieffer is anchor and moderator of Face The Nation; he moderated a Bush-Kerry debate.