Good Wednesday morning. After two chaotic and nerve-wracking days on Wall Street, expect at least a little good news today after the Fed cut the interest rate to 1.5%, a half-point drop. Then again, there isn't much left to cut these days. Here's what Washington is watching after today:

-- What the Music City Mayhem voters were supposed to see after a week of increasingly bitter shots between Barack Obama and John McCain simply didn't materialize. The words "William Ayers" or "Charles Keating" didn't make a lasting impression on anyone. The few zingers that either launched went largely unnoticed. And save for a very few moments -- we count two for each candidate -- nothing really happened. For the third straight debate, news just didn't show up (One might argue this is the tenth straight debate, going back to Al Gore's sighing in his first debate in 2000).

-- That's, essentially, a win for Barack Obama. Not only do insta-polls show Obama winning over more independent voters than McCain, but McCain didn't do anything to change the narrative, and that means Obama's decisive and, Republicans have to fear, hardening lead in the polls won't be shaken. Some expectations for the expectations-setters: Over the next week leading up to the final debate at Hofstra University in New York, pundits will go nuts over the possibility of a truly hard-hitting brawl they think is McCain's only chance to change the narrative and get a lead back.

-- McCain's best moments came when he was alternately sharp and focused on policy. At one point, McCain offered a new plan to keep families in houses that would otherwise be foreclosed upon -- a plan his campaign had yet to release -- that could serve him well among the Reagan Democrats he needs to pull in order to deprive Obama of a win. Politico has details of the American Homeownership Resurgence Plan. His other hot moment: Referring to Obama as "that one" when talking about Obama's vote for a 2005 energy bill. The Obama campaign called it odd, ABC News reports, but Republican strategists tell Ben Smith it'll end up as the line of the night.

-- Obama's highlight was more personally powerful than anything McCain mentioned (Did he cite his time as a prisoner of war? Come to think of it, we can't recall a moment in which he did). Delving into health care policy, Obama again relayed the story of his mother dying of cancer and filling out insurance forms at the same time. Some voters will know what that's like, and that could be the powerful connection Obama has been criticized for lacking so far. Obama also took a shot at McCain for obscuring the record on taxes in what had to be a pre-planned, and yet well-delivered, line: "Senator McCain, I think the Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one," Obama said on the tax debate, per The Swamp's Mark Silva. As McCain does his best to portray Obama as an outsider, Obama's best punch back is to portray the maverick as just another politician.

-- So what happened to the impending attacks McCain was going to lob, and to the tough responses Obama would have given? McCain has not been happy with the sort of campaign he's had to run so far this year, his friends tell Politico's Mike Allen, and that's making the senator snap at reporters and advisers more than usual. And if McCain doesn't like going after Obama's, or anyone's, character, he might want to reevaluate the attack his campaign seems prepared to launch surrounding William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. There's plenty about Obama to go after -- taxes, health care, foreign policy, to name a few issues on which the two can draw contrasts -- but it's a waste of McCain's time to focus on the little stuff.

-- McCain's campaign is watching the same phenomenon Hillary Clinton's campaign saw during the primaries. Both nominees are qualified candidates, but Obama has a luck behind him that few can match. In the primaries, there is no way Obama would have won the change versus experience argument in any other year. This year, change is the mantra, and he beat out the experience. In the general, McCain would probably win if the debate were about experience, or even about foreign policy (At least it would be a nail-biter). But when it's about the economy, and the Dow drops 1,700 points in the two weeks between debates, as the New York Times' Frank Bruni writes, and when it's about change, it's hard not to see Obama's inherent advantages and to wonder if, maybe, the race is already over.

-- The signs of Obama's campaign trail ambitions continue the day after the debate, with the candidate headed to Indianapolis for a rally at the state fairgrounds. The last time a Democrat visited Indiana during the October stretch run was ... we can't seem to find Franklin Roosevelt's travel schedule, but it seems unlikely that Lyndon Johnson's Rose Garden campaign of 1964 would have taken him through Indiana. In 2004, the state went to President Bush by 21 points. If it swings blue this time, it will be virtually impossible for McCain to reach 270 electoral votes.

-- Distance Of The Day: So how many times did the candidates beat up on President Bush and Vice President Cheney? It sure sounded like McCain took on the current White House residents, who happen, last time we checked, to be members of his own party, more than Obama did. That energy bill "that one" voted for? "Sponsored by Bush and Cheney," McCain said. The Times' Adam Nagourney also pointed out McCain's shout-out to Democratic Senators Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy, noting the distance McCain still needs to build between his GOP and the old Republican Party that voters despise.

-- Today On The Trail: Obama's only stop today is at the fairgrounds in Indianapolis, while McCain joins running mate Sarah Palin for rallies in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Strongsville, Ohio before appearing jointly on Hannity and Colmes. Joe Biden is at a community event in Tampa before heading to Fort Myers this evening. Michelle Obama does the media rounds today, starting with a rally in Keene, New Hampshire followed by appearances on Larry King Live and The Daily Show.