Analysis: Debate wasn’t McCain’s game changer

The second debate between presidential nominees John McCain and Barack Obama was, for the most part, a rehash of the first debate, and for McCain that might as well be a loss. 

The Arizona senator, who has fallen behind in national and battleground polls over the past two weeks as the economic situation has worsened, is in need of a game changing moment to swing the race and he was not able to deliver one for himself Tuesday night.

{mosads}The town hall-style debate, a format that was sought to favor McCain, was again dominated by the ongoing financial crisis, an issue that has thus far served to Sen. Obama’s (Ill.) benefit.

With the Republican trailing and the calendar running out of spaces before Election Day, McCain needed a performance that would change the dynamic of the race and unsettle the status quo.

He didn’t get that Tuesday night as the two men settled into familiar lines of attack and defense.

McCain was more aggressive than he was in the first debate, and clearly the Arizona senator was more comfortable in his preferred debate setting.

But neither candidate’s argument seemed particularly fresh or new in a race that has come to be dominated by daily deliveries of bad news from either Wall Street or Washington, and Tuesday night’s debate came as the Dow closed down more than 500 points and falling further below 10,000 points.

A McCain strategist said on a conference call last week that the camp was looking forward to "turning the page" on the constant stream of bad economic news and returning the focus to questions about Obama’s judgment and trustworthiness.

While the Illinois senator’s camp has gleefully repeated that strategist’s desire for a new page, the McCain camp has nonetheless hammered away at Obama in recent days, inundating reporters with questions and reports about Obama's past associations with William Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground.

That message, however, is being drowned out by voters’ concerns with the economy.

McCain's camp said the GOP nominee would discuss Ayers if he came up during the debate, but in a forum where even foreign affairs were only discussed for less than 30 minutes, Ayers and other character issues never entered the discussion.

The voters in the audience Tuesday night made it clear that they are far more concerned about the economy than they are about who Obama has associated with in the past.

Only one debate remains and that one is supposed to center around the economy, even though the first two have done precisely that.