Where is Ralph Nader when we need him?

You would not have had an inkling from the presidential candidates' third and final debate last night that Wednesday had been a day of fearful carnage on Wall Street, throwing into question the desperate efforts of the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve to stabilise the situation.

You would not have known that in a month the Dow Jones industrial index has lost 25 per cent of its value. You would not have known that in the considered estimation of many economists, the United States could well be entering a prolonged recession without much chance of recovery for many years.

There were, to be sure, dutiful references by both Obama and McCain to crisis, but mostly it was as though they were talking about a troublesome traffic accident a couple of blocks away. McCain flourished a proposal to bail out homeowners. Obama claimed that the bankers' bail-out bill for which they had both voted contained exactly such provisions.

Then the two retreated to mechanical reiteration of their tax plans, their health plans, their plans for energy independence, all of them topics interminably raked over in the earlier debates.

Three instant polls showed that the all-important independent voters thought Obama had had the best of it. After a spritely beginning, McCain soon looked puffy and tired. His little jabs at Obama sounded peevish rather than fierce. Obama somewhat unconvincingly assumed the role of genial sparring partner, plastering a smile across his face as McCain flailed away.

Given the political news yesterday, Obama could afford to smile. A poll conducted by the New York Times found the Democrat with commanding leads in crucial states. The margins are beginning to suggest a stampede to Obama and the Democrats.

The morning of the third presidential debate a friend of mine in Landrum, South Carolina conducted an informal survey of voter sentiment in this rural town in the heart of Dixie. He pulled over at a convenience store-cum-coffee shop, and walked in with a wad of McCain/Palin stickers. "Don't you bring those things in here," said the man behind