Economy dominates second debate

Barack Obama and John McCain met in a town hall-style debate Tuesday night, and voters who got to ask questions made it clear that the ongoing financial crisis is the driving issue of the campaign. 

More than two-thirds of the 90-minute debate focused on the Wall Street meltdown, taxes and healthcare, all issues thought to weigh in Sen. Obama’s (Ill.) favor as the Democratic nominee appears to have taken an outright lead over Republican rival Sen. McCain (Ariz.) in recent weeks, which were dominated by economic uncertainty and fear.

{mosads}The Arizona senator shook things up a bit early by proposing that the U.S. buy up the country’s bad mortgages that are considered to be at the root of the ongoing, now global, financial crisis.

The Obama campaign responded after the debate that the plan McCain is proposing is already included in the $700 billion rescue plan Congress passed and the president signed last week.

The Democratic nominee pushed his argument that he, not McCain, is the candidate most concerned with the struggles of the middle-class – Obama’s campaign noted afterwards that McCain did not speak the words “middle-class” for the second debate in a row. Meantime, the Republican candidate fired back by stressing that he believes Obama’s solutions to this and other domestic problems are more government intervention and higher taxes.

For the most part, the two candidates continued to fight the same fight they have been locked in for weeks, using the same language and trying to score the same points.

But in recent days, the McCain campaign has tried to raise doubts about Obama’s judgment and trustworthiness by repeatedly bringing up his past associations with people like Weather Underground member William Ayers.

Ayers, however, never entered the debate as the voters gathered in the audience in Nashville, Tenn. asked specific questions about the economic bailout, healthcare and later in the debate Pakistan and other foreign affairs.

Moderator Tom Brokaw struggled throughout the debate to keep the candidates to the agreed upon time limits, but both Obama and McCain appeared ready to spar in a debate that, while at times tedious and repetitive, did get contentious.

The Obama campaign took immediate exception to McCain referring to Obama, at one point, as "that one."

"John McCain was all over the map on the issues, and he is so angry about the state of his campaign that he referred to Barack Obama as ‘that one’ – last time he couldn’t look at Sen. Obama, this time he couldn’t say his name," campaign manager David Plouffe said after the debate.

The McCain camp, however, insisted that the Arizona senator showed full command Tuesday night, and that he "was the only man who demonstrated he had the independence and strength to take on everything that's broken in Washington and on Wall Street."

"From Barack Obama, we heard half-truths and contradictions between what he says and what he has done," McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said in a statement. "He said he supported offshore drilling but has opposed it for months. He talked about tax cuts but he voted for higher taxes 94 times and promises increased taxes on small businesses. He talked about reducing the size of government but has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in new government spending. Tonight, Barack Obama had an opportunity to level with the American people, but instead all we heard was more of the same."

With 28 days to go, Obama has taken the lead in both national and critical battleground state polls, but the candidates will face off once more. The two men take the stage at Hofstra University next week for their final debate where the issue is the economy, an issue that has already dominated the first two debates and the last few weeks of the race.