As the stock market tumbles and people lose their futures, the two candidates locked words with each other with a mere nod and smile to the American people, both candidates clearly more interested in winning their contests than in saving their country from economic disaster.

In fairness to John McCain, if not the perfect solution, he did offer a proposal at the start of the debate, ironically close to Hillary Clinton’s tender that the Treasury Department buy up the mortgages that Americans can no longer afford and renegotiate the loans at the current home value, this the one break from spewing party ideology by either candidate.

But quickly Barack Obama, clearly left speechless by the unexpected McCain proposal took the debate back to its informercial status, Mr. Obama speaking the party line, placing the blame for the financial crisis on deregulation and the lack of fiscal discipline under President Bush, whom he repeatedly linked to Senator McCain.

Mr. McCain, like every Republican since time immemorial, pigeon-holed his Democratic opponent as an advocate of spending and higher taxes, while presenting himself as pragmatic, willing to reach across the aisle and as the maverick often at odds with his own party candidate.

It was parity when we needed a true Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Green Beret moment. Instead what we got was Legally Blonde.

And nothing but blather from the chattering classes who have lost all credibility, too many behaving like Barack Obama fan club members rather than insightful, responsible and independent-minded journalists.

At 9:55 P.M. last night, Obama spokesman Bill Burton issued the morning debate headline in his communiqué titled, “Did McCain just refer to Obama as ‘That One?’”

"Folks are going to remember that," Burton told ABC News in a separate email, steering the debate meme.

Obama strategist, David Axelrod, quickly took up the charge calling McCain’s “that one” "odd."

"Senator Obama has a name," said Axelrod. "You'd expect your opponent to use that name."

McCain's "that one" reference came when the Arizona senator was contrasting his opposition to the 2005 Bush energy bill which was, in McCain's words, "loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies," with Obama's support for the measure.

"You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one," said McCain, motioning towards Obama. "You know who voted against it? Me."

In minutes ‘that one’ became the focus of debate discussion on all the cable channels. Today one would be hard-pressed to find a story on the debate that doesn’t make McCain’s referral of Barack Obama at least a mention in its piece, precisely as Mr. Burton wanted, including the inference that McCain’s ‘that one’ was really a racial epithet thrown at the first African-American presidential candidate likening the reference to a slave-owner calling his slave, ‘boy.’

The one attempt by either candidate to offer a real solution to the financial crisis, by the way, became but a footnote to the debate recount classified by some as nothing more than a cynical attempt by McCain to grab the morning headline, and explored by no one as a viable solution, nor by the way, any kudos for McCain for at least coming to the debate with something outside the box of banality.

But banality may be what America wants in these deeply scary times even if what they need is a real dose of reality from their leaders. But what we want isn’t always what we need. So we hold onto our hopes and live for our dreams of better times, sunshine and moonbeams the script of the prescient Barack Obama written long before the financial world imploded.

Jimmy Stewart (George): What do you want, Mary? Do you want the moon? If you want it, I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down for you. Hey! That's a pretty good idea! I'll give you the moon, Mary. 

Donna Reed (Mary Hatch Bailey): I'll take it! Then what? 

Jimmy Stewart (George): Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve see, and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much? 

It’s a wonderful life.