But in the movie, Sly Stallone’s iconic character pulls himself from the mat while the audience is still in suspense, waiting to find out what will happen.

With three weeks until the election, this very real American drama is far from over, but both McCain and Sen. Barack Obama showed signs of end-game strategy, with McCain gleefully going for gusto, and Obama comfortable with allowing McCain’s old lines of attack to continue.

Many analysts are surely all over cable and the Net now giving McCain the debate on points. The only trouble with that is this: he lost the forest through the trees. Obama talked past McCain to the American people. McCain seemed more interested in winning a fight with Obama.

The Arizona senator tossed in 1980s-style attacks on Obama that seemed tired (e.g., liberal tax-and-spender) and ridiculous comparisons, such as the one he trotted out seeking to link Obama to Herbert Hoover.

McCain used the debate to continue his backfiring line of attack that Obama started his campaign in the “living room” of a terrorist, William Ayers. But for two years, Obama has appeared in our living rooms, through the TV or, for some Iowans, literally. The suggestion that he’s a stalking horse for dark forces is an eye-roller.

McCain was like the kid who jumps out from behind a bush and yells “boo” to scare you on the way to school — after jumping out from the same bush and yelling “boo” each day for the past two weeks. As Dionne Warwick would say, you just walk on by.

Swinging for Obama with haymakers, McCain made the classic mistake of the barroom brawler who, intoxicated with anger, forgets that such long reaches leave the thrower exposed. McCain’s attempts to hook Obama to certain ghosts of the Vietnam War haven’t worked because people are too busy fighting their own contempotary day-to-day battles. And we don’t care that Obama hasn’t traveled to South America, something for which McCain actually chided the Illinois senator with a snide line that just seemed mean — like something you’d hear from a 9-wood-wielding 72-year-old yelling at the 82-year-old he’s trying to play through on an Arizona golf course.

McCain, so fired up over Ayers, forgot to study his health care plan or develop a clear way to explain it. So on this real-world issue, one that’s scary stuff on Maple Street, the debate left the distinct impression that McCain’s plan could eliminate your employer-based coverage and replace it with a nebulous $5,000 credit — a situation that could leave older workers with a far worse deal.

Obama showed superior command of the details, leaving McCain with a weak retort of seeking to pin the supposed woes of “Joe the plumber” on Obama.

McCain made a miscalculation with his tax-and-spend attacks on Obama as well. Americans aren’t so worried about high taxes right now because the government can’t tax what they don’t have. They want some stability in their lives, someone to take charge and stop the hemorrhaging.

Even McCain’s best line of the night will come back to haunt him. “I’m not President Bush,” McCain said. “If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago.” Anytime George W. Bush’s name is mentioned it is a loser for McCain, and it is he, not Obama, in all those pictures hugging and consorting with W.

Here in western Iowa, we were treated to another slap in the face as McCain, with the universe of federal spending to choose from when asked a question about where he may make some cuts, went right for the throat of ethanol. Some Republicans in recent days here in Carroll have told me they don’t like McCain’s position on ethanol but they view his comments as rhetorical. The cuts couldn’t make it through Congress so his statements are irrelevant, they argue. Considering what ethanol has meant to the farm economy of this part of Iowa, that’s a gamble most aren’t willing to take.

What’s more, on the energy front, McCain is proposing the construction of 45 new nuclear plants — not exactly a boon for western Iowa which will benefit if wind, solar and other renewable forms of energy are placed at the top of the nation’s energy strategy — as they are with Obama.

Finally, and perhaps most devastating for McCain, was a comment he made about abortion as he literally poo-poohed the idea of a “health of the mother” exception in a theoretical late term abortion ban. No matter how this spins, it still stings McCain and will be a deal-killer with independent suburban — and even rural — women, not all of whom have picked a candidate yet.

In fact, McCain’s opposition to the health exception was the only major new position to emerge during the course of the debate, and it will weigh heavily on certain undecided voters’ minds. One could make the case that the other 89 minutes and 45 seconds of the debate meant nothing politically for either man.

McCain may find himself playing defense among female voters all the way through Election Day.

Sen. Barack Obama made a change of direction — getting out of Iraq more quickly than McCain and focusing on Afghanistan and other incubators of terror — sound safe in his hands.

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama shake hands before the first debate of the 2008 general election (Photo: Flickr - David Katz/Obama for America)

In the end, McCain was like a Buick salesman who did a better job pitching his car than the Toyota guy. Great on points, but we know who gets the sale.

“Obviously our foreign policy over the last eight years has not worked,” Obama said.

The Illinois Democrat showed a presidential command of foreign policy issues and went after his rival in a strong, respectful manner — a more Midwestern approach, if you will.

McCain flexed large foreign policy muscles, but he detracted from that with personal attacks on Obama, calling him naive and inexperienced. At times, the presidential debate at the University of Mississippi seemed like a contest between confidence in the form of Obama and arrogance itself with McCain.

It is a subtety not lost on Midwesterners.

Both candidates successfully articulated highly nuanced foreign policy positions, effortlessly getting the challenging names of world leaders correct (mostly), and weaving through complexities with no hiccups. No one lost the debate tonight as Obama, 47, showed the bearing for the Oval Office and McCain, 72, demonstrated sufficient vigor.

How will it play in the Iowa?

For those in Iowa looking for specific personal financial reasons to pick a candidate, McCain may be the only one who has provided us one — and it is not good for him in this state.  McCain made it clear one of the casualties of the potential Wall Street bailout should be ethanol.

Supporting ethanol might be debatable on a national level, but it is N.I.M.B.Y. around here.

“I’d eliminate ethanol subsidies,” McCain said flatly. “I oppose ethanol subsidies.”

Those are likely deal-killing words for farmers and others in rural America who have made investments and business decisions based on ethanol.

Iowa’s ethanol industry has resulted in more than 47,000 new jobs in Iowa.  Production of ethanol puts $1.7 billion into Iowa consumers’ pockets each year, according to the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

In neighboring Nebraska, ethanol is big business, too, and because the Cornhusker State bases three of its five electoral votes on how presidential candidates do in individual congressional districts, McCain’s ethanol blast only serves to help Obama’s already aggressive efforts in Omaha.

Candidates on offense

McCain had his strongest moments of the night in challenging Obama’s long-stated and controversial declaration that he’d meet with certain world leaders without preconditions.

Actually using the word “Holocaust,” McCain attempted to paint a picture of Obama sitting down with Hitler-like figures bent on Israel’s destruction. A mere meeting, McCain argues, confers legitimacy on thug rulers.

“It doesn’t mean we invite them over for tea,” Obama shot back.

Obama generally found success when he sought to connect McCain with George W. Bush, leaving the Arizona Republican with little but ridiculous deflectors. McCain went so far as to give himself different nicknames in the debate. First he said some people call him “sheriff” because of his alleged efforts to attack waste, fraud and abuse. I wonder what Charles Keating called McCain back in the 1980s? Sheriff — of Mayberry, maybe.

McCain then called himself a “maverick” as if plucking that word from his first life would save him in a second as he faced a withering assault on the links to Bush.

The Arizonan never adequately answered the charge that 90 percent of his political DNA comes from W.

“It’s well known I have not been elected Miss Congenialty,” McCain repeated.