Will they just answer the question??

While watching the debate two nights ago, I became increasingly frustrated with both candidates. Why, you may ask? One word: Digressions.
I know that that it is typical for a candidate to be asked a question, and then answer it in a way that connects to an issue that they would really like to discuss, rather than the question at hand. However, as someone who would like to know the stance of both candidates (especially in this election, which has been fascinating to me thus far) on the issues, it is difficult for me to follow them when they don't really give an answer to the question asked. What ground my gears that night, was that both candidates basically refused to answer these types of questions: "How do you stand on the 700 million dollar plan to bail out to bail out the companies on wall street?" "What will you do as president to fix this?"
Jim Lehrer continued to ask the candidates these questions, but it took them a lot of prompting to actually answer them. They digressed so much in fact, that I still don't know what they're going to do about this financial crisis. Here's a summary of both of their responses when asked the questions above: (these aren't exact words, by the way.)

Jim: (To both candidates) "What do you think of Bush's proposal to bail out the companies on Wall Street?"

Obama: "Well, I'm going to talk about my health care plan and how we need more money to fund education, and how we spend money on the war instead." (I agree with all of these points and ideas, but he just kept mentioning things that had little to do with the topic at hand)

When directed at McCain, he usually answered in this fashion:
McCain: "I have done everything in my power to control government spending! Down with the pork barrel!" (Once again, valid point, but this doesn't answer his question.)

But back to my point. I'm seriously frustrated with these digressions. After talking about secret messages and word choice in class, it seems to me that the candidates never feel like simply answering a question. Instead they must mention other policies or plans they feel strongly about, or talking about how their opponent wouldn't be able to solve whichever issue correctly. When will this end? When will a candidate finally be able to stay focused on the task at hand? I'm not sure, but I'm really getting sick of this.