Ahead of a 30-minute "infomercial" to be aired across most US TV networks tonight, Obama spoke rousingly in Ohio yesterday. Billed as his "final argument", the speech mixed the older, loftier rhetoric of the primary season with the more measured and earthly tone of recent months. Not once did Obama allow himself a smile. This was a totally sober speech, concluding with the now familiar invocation of "Hope" as its grim battle cry.

He placed the flailing economy at the fore, consistently abstracting the crisis above the candidates themselves (in clear contrast to the McCain campaign's plunges into the personal). Obama repeated his commitment not to make "a big election about small things". Yet he responded to the more absurd attacks on his supposed "ideology" by strongly defending his platform.

"Government should do what we can't do for ourselves," he said, in arguing the great role government has to play in engendering prosperity in the country, before really sticking to his guns: "John McCain calls it socialism, I call it opportunity." But there is more at stake in this election than vying policies.  Showing that he could meld the political scrapper with the high-minded orator, Obama returned to his rhetorical best towards the end of the speech. "In one week, we can come together as a nation and as a people and choose our better history." As ever, Obama was finely aware of the power of narratives in this election. Both McCain and Obama have drafted stories of themselves as individuals and leaders. But only Obama's campaign has appealed to a renewed narrative of Americanness that in its craft and warmth has that strange (and often dubious) power to inspire.

Unsurprisingly, the New York Times has endorsed Obama over McCain. The pillar of American print media remains the bete noire of a particularly virulent segment of conservatives, convinced that the broadsheet is at the centre of a "liberal, elitist" national media. During the Republican convention, Sarah Palin singled out the paper as an exemplar of high-falutin' coastal snobbery. 

It's difficult to gauge bias in such a venerable fixture of the American media landscape, one which in almost all respects is painfully centrist and middle-class in its sensibilities. Yes, the paper's op-ed page is predominantly populated by left-leaning columnists, and its editorials mostly take left-leaning positions. But there is little to the suggestion that the paper in the sum of its parts is somehow "leftist"; it was the New York Times, after all, that resurrected the spectre of Bill Ayers by recently making the ex-radical front-page news.

Were Obama to go on to win the presidency, many grumbling conservatives will fault a "pliant" media for giving the Democrat the edge. As Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal, "The press knows who the press is for, and it isn't generally the one to the right." While Noonan goes on to blame McCain's own failings - not media bias - for his seemingly impending defeat, the image of a press corps swooning for Obama will remain a part of the narrative of this election campaign. 

But when only 18% of Americans get their news from print media, the grey lady looks more like a straw man. Talk radio and the explosive mix of news and opinion on 24/7 news channels have steered American discourse clearly to the right in the last fifteen years. In the end, newspaper endorsements don't count for much. And - despite Palin's protestations - nor do the east coast's "liberal" rags.

The McCain campaign seems ready to concede Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa to Obama, focussing its energies instead in teetering southern states - e.g. Virginia - and, bizarrely, in Pennsylvania. Obama is thought to hold a considerable advantage in Pennsylvania, but the state once described as "Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama between" must seem winnable to the McCain campaign. The gamble makes gory reading for the Republican (map below from Electoral-vote.com).

A New York Times/CBS poll now puts Obama's lead over McCain at 14 points. With his back against the wall, the final presidential debate tonight offers McCain the possibility of clawing his way back into the race. The candidates and the moderator (CBS' Bob Schieffer) will sit at the same table in a debate format engineered to be more conversational. Such a format may encourage more direct exchanges and improvised arguments (both distinctly lacking in the previous debates).

The onus rests on McCain to take the debate by the horns. Will he eschew the negative tactics that have supposedly contributed to his slump in the polls, or will he bring up the bogeymen of William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright? How will he defend his proposed economic policies when a majority of Americans would rather have Obama steering the economy through troubled waters? Can he turn the doddering awkwardness of his last appearance into controlled and comfortable authority?

Obama is likely to continue performing as blandly as he has in the prior clashes, boring his way to a favourable-looking draw. In McCain lies the potential for pyrotechnics. The debate kicks off at 02.00 BST, tune in to openUSA for real-time commentary and analysis on our live-blog. 

At a McCain rally in Iowa on Saturday, Rev. Arnold Conrad asked God to remember "that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November" because "millions of people around this world" - Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims - are praying to their distinctly non-Christian gods for an Obama victory. Conrad concluded: "Lord, I pray You would guard Your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than You." Video from TPM below.

A recent piece on Politico takes the temperature of the Republican base, and sees it reaching feverish desperation. The mood at recent McCain-Palin rallies has turned more "frenzied" and "visceral". Examples of this nastier turn can be seen in the video posted on openUSA yesterday. Are such demonstrations of emotion admissions of impending defeat? Or inklings of a last ditch Republican tactical coup? More likely the former. As Tom Ash pointed out this week, negative campaigning doesn't seem to work.

03:35 It's over. Early verdict: a stalemate leaning towards McCain. Obama's cerebral tone doesn't lend itself to the (stiff) informality of town-hall debates. But the Democrat chose deliberately to speak up to the American public. Will that make a difference? Can McCain's optimism help Americans forget about the economy that threatens to destroy his campaign (first) and then his country?

03:33 "What I don't know is what the unexpected will be" ... McCain lapses into Rumsfeldian prose.

03:25 A veteran raises the spectre of US involvement in an Iran-Israel war. McCain pets the veteran. Yuck. His answer is quite yuck, too.

Obama speaks sensitively about the vulnerable state of Iran's internal energy infrastructure. 

03:22 Obama on the Georgia crisis: "We should anticipate these challenges and not just be reactive." Obama-style pre-emption?

03:19 McCain recalls Putin's strange K-G-B contact lenses. Spouts nonsense about the Russian threat. Most Americans will probably soak this stuff up anyway.

03:16 This live-blogger is happy... Brokaw's asking good questions, makes the candidates respond to British defeatism in Afghanistan. Obama hits out at the Karzai government. McCain bigs up Petraeus. Throughout this entire debate, McCain has seemed the optimist and Obama the gloomy pessimist. What happened to Hope?

03:14 Bang! Obama brings up McCain's crazy song about bombing Iran, his desire to attack Iraq, and obliterate North Korea. 

03:10 McCain correctly taking Obama to task for his earlier misguided comments about attacking Pakistan. He also slyly suggests that Obama carries a "small stick" (as opposed to Teddy Roosevelt's and his "big stick").

03:08 Best question from the audience so far! Should we treat Pakistan like we treated Cambodia in the Vietnam war? What say you, Barack? Obama quite cautiously emphasises coordination, but promises to "kill" and "crush" al-Qaida.

03:07 Hanoi Hilton, take a bow! 

03:03 Brokaw wades in: What is the Obama doctrine regarding humanitarian intervention? Obama: all atrocities "diminish us", but we can't be everywhere at the same time, we have to "mobilise the international community". Taking community organising to the world stage. 

02:57 Obama: Healthcare is a right. Government must crack down on insurance companies. Clear, honest and different from McCain. I stand corrected.

02:53 McCain's talking down to Americans in explaining his health care plan, and he's winning. Cerebral and detailed is going to fly over a lot of people's heads (including this sleepy one).

02:50 Obama looks solemn and tired, McCain's much more jovial and casual. This really isn't Barack's debate format.