With the debate on, the stakes finally are getting serious

[babylonsister]

With the debate on, the stakes finally are getting serious


By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers


OXFORD, Miss. — Now it gets really serious — maybe. The primaries were engaging. The conventions were a grand spectacle. But when John McCain and Barack Obama step onto the stage Friday evening for the first of three debates, perhaps 65 million Americans will be watching and the presidency will hang in the balance.

McCain on Wednesday called to postpone the debate so that he and Obama could go to Washington to help work on a proposed bailout of the nation's financial system. On Friday, even without an agreement, McCain relented and headed to Mississippi, as did Obama, who'd always said he'd be at the debate whether McCain showed or not.

There's no doubt the face-offs will be critical to who wins the presidency.

With the contest close and an economic crisis coming atop two wars to underscore the high stakes, the debates could prove as pivotal as they were in 1960, when a cool John F. Kennedy bested Richard Nixon and took the election, or in 1980, when an affable Ronald Reagan reassured nervous voters and turned the tide strongly against Jimmy Carter.

"The debates are crucial," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Polling Institute at Quinnipiac University.

Underscoring the point, Quinnipiac this week found one in four likely voters in several key battleground states saying that the debates were likely to impact their decision — enough to swing any of those states either way.

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