It's been months since John McCain first caught flak for calling himself a computer "illiterate" in an interview given this January. But while McCain's personal comfort with technology wouldn't seem to rank up there in importance with the other issues of the day, the subject has refused to disappear, popping up most recently in an attack ad from Barack Obama's campaign and in news coverage of a McCain adviser's claim that his candidate had invented the BlackBerry.

Now, with the first of three presidential debates days away, the stage is set for the issue to resurface yet again as the candidates tussle over the problems facing the high-tech financial sector and the larger global economy. Both candidates will be under pressure to show not only that they grasp the 21st-century challenges that will come their way, but that they're in touch with the daily realities of ordinary Americans. For a good many voters, that may mean having a working knowledge of computers and the Web.

"I think it's a valid question," said Susan Mills, executive producer of a forthcoming "NewsHour" documentary about the presidential forums. "But I would see it coming up in the town hall meeting more than the other two." In that debate, the candidates' second, they will field questions from audience members as well as from visitors to MyDebates.org, a partnership between the Commission on Presidential Debates and the social networking site MySpace.

The debates raise the danger that McCain will dig himself in deeper, but they could just as easily give him an opportunity to show he's not too old or out of touch to lead.

David All, a Republican new media strategist, said he, too, expected the Web to be discussed at the debates, calling it a "globalization issue." But he stressed that few voters would cast their ballots based on a candidate's familiarity with any particular technology. "I don't think the question should revolve around whether you walk around with a BlackBerry," said All. "It should revolve around the information age as a whole."

Certainly, the debates raise the danger that McCain will dig himself in deeper, as a member of his Web team, Mark Soohoo, did at a panel discussion in June when he assured the audience of techies that McCain was "aware" of the Internet. The statement quickly backfired, becoming a punch line from the blogosphere to cable news and breathing new life into a story the campaign would sooner have forgotten. But the debates could just as easily give McCain an opportunity to address concerns that his lack of computer savvy means he's too old or out of touch to lead. "Look at the way both [Bob] Dole and [Ronald] Reagan dealt with the age issue. They were very clever and it worked to their advantage," Mills said.

Presidential candidates have at least touched on the Web in every debate series since 1996, when Bill Clinton talked about ensuring that "every 12-year-old can log on to the Internet." (He remained silent on the subject of 72-year-olds.) One significant shift from previous debates though is that, while today questions swirl around whether McCain is tech-savvy enough, George W. Bush was able to tease Al Gore in 2000 for too readily embracing the Web. "I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator," Bush said in their first debate.

But even if McCain confuses his Twitter and his Treo during the debate, is personal tech really an issue voters should care about? McCain's defenders dismiss the idea, arguing that staffers routinely and necessarily fill the gaps in their boss' expertise. "You don't have to be an I.T. guy to be president, run a department or serve in Congress," asserted Josh Shultz, a Republican strategist who works frequently with the National Republican Congressional Committee. "You want a candidate who understands those issues, but when voters decide, it's more often on the policy differences than their Twitter skills."

Yet, in an era in which elected officials have to deal with subjects from Net neutrality to rural broadband access to maintaining America's edge as a leader of innovation, an analog mentality could start to raise real questions about a candidate's ability to govern effectively. "Are you not paying attention to what's going on in the world?" asked Micah Sifry, a co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum. "Because the Pentagon is paying attention to how al-Qaida and other groups are using the Internet to organize themselves."

Politically, one place McCain could see his lack of tech skills hurt him is if coverage both online and off helps feed into an image of him as detached and outside the mainstream. "I don't expect our president to be in the White House updating his Facebook status," said Tracy Russo, a Democratic Web strategist who debated with Soohoo about the importance of personal Internet use. "But at the same time, I think there is this underlying, broader question that applies. You're clearly out of touch with the majority of the American population."

That's largely the point Obama tried to hammer home in an ad released earlier this month that charged McCain with being "out of touch" for not knowing how to use a computer or e-mail. A survey from Pew Internet conducted earlier this year found that 73 percent of people reported using the Web at least occasionally, but Obama's ad provoked charges of ageism from some McCain supporters, and this week Joe Biden brought it back into the spotlight when he called it "terrible" in an interview with Katie Couric.

(The ad had perhaps some extra kick because Obama has been conspicuous in his embrace of new media, most recently announcing his selection of Biden as his running mate via text message.)

For their part, McCain supporters point to reports that McCain is working to catch up with the online era, including an interview he gave with the New York Times in July in which he detailed his progress towards basic computer literacy. In that interview, senior advisor Mark Salter also clarified that, while McCain doesn't have a BlackBerry or log in to e-mail himself, he reads both given to him by his staff.

But whether McCain is able to tamp down the subject or whether it remains an annoyance for his campaign, there's a good chance the question of candidates' personal technology use will be a short-lived political issue.

"I think, without a doubt, this is the last time the Republican Party will ever field a nominee who doesn't have a real grasp of how to use personal technology and the Internet, just like Bob Dole was the last World War II veteran the Republican Party would ever field," said All. "It's just a matter of age."

Lucas Grindley contributed reporting to this story.