"The window of opportunity for us is narrowing," said GOP pollster Neil Newhouse a few days ago at a political forum.

In other words, there isn't a lot of time to turn this race around with four weeks until Election Day.

Realistically, the dominance of the economy right now is blowing away whatever advantage McCain had on national security and Iraq.

It's really sort of payback in a sense for the way that national security played to the advantage of the Republicans in 2002 and 2004. Nothing the Democrats could do at that point could stop the GOP at times.

Will McCain go after Obama tonight on the economy? Mr. Neal Boortz says that Obama doesn't even understand how the capital gains tax works and says McCain should highlight that when it comes to small business, and show that Obama is just a hollow suit.

But right now, the ole GOP maxim of "they'll raise your taxes," and "he's a liberal" don't seem to be playing with the electorate. Mainly because those arguments worked really well a few years ago.

For Obama, a draw tonight is fine. That's like getting another first down late in the game as you're trying to run out the clock, or an offensive rebound and a new shot clock.

If McCain goes after him on some issue other than the economy, like William Ayers or Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, you know Obama will come back with a line like he used on Monday on the trail.

"I've got news for the McCain campaign," Obama said in North Carolina, "The American people are losing right now. They're losing their jobs. They're losing their health care. They're losing their homes. They're losing their savings."

"I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about."

McCain meanwhile turned up his criticism of Obama, as did his running mate.

"There are essential things that we don't know about Sen. Obama or the record he brings to this campaign," McCain said during a stop in New Mexico, when he belittled Obama's line that McCain had done little in Congress to stop the current financial crisis.

"I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed," said the Arizona Senator.

We'll see tonight if McCain has the guts to say stuff like that five feet away from Obama. It's easy to trash someone when they're not in the room, or not listening.

It's another thing to do it on national TV with the guy sitting right next to you.

No matter what Obama's camp says about an "angry" John McCain, one thing it would do is certainly set up an electric moment.

And you never know what's going to happen when you get jabbed in the chops. It's easy to think of something that you can say, it's another thing to do it in the heat of battle.

So, it could be an electric night, or it could be like the first debate, sort of boring.