Washington - The US presidential candidates put aside the serious business of courting voters Thursday night to match wits before a well-heeled crowd that expected to be entertained, not wooed.

Dressed in a white tie and black dinner jacket, Republican John McCain, 72, insisted he had dismissed his entire team of senior advisors and replaced them with "a man named Joe the Plumber" - a reference to an Ohio man who has become Everyman in the bitter race for the White House.

Washington, October 17 (ANI): The timing of choosing what kind of speech a candidate standing in a political election should deliver actually matters when it comes to persuading novice voters, according to a study.

Hakkyun Kim of Concordia University, Akshay Rao of the University of Minnesota, and Angela Lee of Northwestern University have found that voters seem to be quite interested in abstract themes when facing a choice in the distant future.

Washington, Oct 17 : Republican presidential nominee, who faces an uphill road to the White House, has said he loves where his campaign is and continued to hammer his Democratic rival Barack Obama for waging what he calls class warfare.

On the heels of the final presidential debate, polls suggest the race could be tightening, and even Obama warned his supporters on Thursday not to get cocky.

New Delhi, Oct. 16 : Indian students believe that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will become the 44th president of the United States on November 4 this year.

"I think for myself Obama is a good candidate and he is a good orator also. From that point of view, he is having very good opinion about Iran and Iraq issues as well as I feel that he is a very good candidate and he is going to win elections 100 percent," said Priyanka, a student at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

SenWashington, Oct 16 : To resolve an old problem of the lack of cell phone coverage on her remote 15-acre ranch near Sedona (Arizona), as soon as John McCain launched his presidential bid, Cindy McCain offered land for a permanent cell tower.

Over the past year, she offered land for a permanent cell tower, and Verizon Wireless embarked on an expensive public process to meet her needs, hiring contractors and seeking county land-use permits, the Washington Post reported.

New York, Oct. 16 : Republican candidate John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama slugged it out over the faltering U. S. economy, taxes, energy policy and character in their third and final presidential debate on Wednesday night.

McCain took an aggressive approach, but once again, neither man landed a knockout punch nor committed a major gaffe, reports CBS.

“John McCain turned in an energetic, focused and, at times, emotional performance,” said CBSNews. com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs.