On October 15, 2008, Barack Obama and John McCain Met for Their Final, Fiercest Debate

A town-hall-style showdown at Hofstra University turned a plumber's name into a household phrase and sharpened the closing arguments of a historic race.

With the financial crisis still rattling markets and early voting already underway in several states, Barack Obama and John McCain arrived at Hofstra University on October 15, 2008, for their third and final presidential debate. Moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS News, the encounter was sharper and more personal than the two that preceded it, with both candidates fighting to define the campaign's final three weeks.

Meet Joe

McCain, trailing in most national polls, came out aggressive from the opening exchange, pressing Obama on taxes, spending, and his association with William Ayers. But the moment that outlasted the news cycle arrived when McCain invoked Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man who had confronted Obama days earlier about his small-business tax plan. McCain repeated 'Joe the Plumber' more than twenty times over the ninety minutes, turning a campaign-trail encounter into a debate-stage mascot. Obama, for his part, addressed Wurzelbacher directly on camera, defending his proposal to raise taxes on incomes above $250,000 while insisting most small businesses would see cuts. By the next morning, Wurzelbacher — who was not, in fact, a licensed plumber — was the most talked-about man in America who wasn't actually running for anything.

Beyond the Joe the Plumber theatrics, the debate covered ground that would define the final stretch: the $700 billion financial bailout passed weeks earlier, health care mandates, education spending, and the candidates' sharply different temperaments under pressure. Snap polls from CBS News and CNN both showed Obama winning the exchange, continuing a pattern from the first two debates that left McCain's campaign searching for a turning point that never quite arrived. Three weeks later, Obama would be elected the 44th president, while Wurzelbacher briefly parlayed his newfound fame into a country single and a congressional run of his own — a footnote of an economic crisis that outlived the debate stage that made him famous.