McCain hits hard but debate lacks game-changer

Agence France-Presse . Nashville, Tennessee

John McCain hammered away at unruffled front-runner Barack Obama in Tuesday’s second presidential debate but failed to land the cutting blow likely to revive his sliding poll numbers.
The under-pressure Republican White House hopeful came armed with an ambitious 300-billion dollar surprise plan to buy up the bad American mortgages that helped tip the global economy into crisis.
The Obama camp later claimed the proposal was part of the rescue plan signed into law late last week and that ‘it was Obama, not McCain, who called for this move two weeks ago.’
The initiative, an apparent bid by McCain to twist Obama’s advantage on the economy in his favour, made few ripples during a sometimes muted debate that got most heated in clashes on the financial crisis, Pakistan and Iraq.
McCain was under intense pressure to throw his sliding campaign a lifeline, as he trails Democrat Obama by widening margins in national polls and in battleground states with time running out before the November 4 election.
Snap polls by US television networks awarded the debate, the second of a trio of presidential clashes, to Obama, who seemed as comfortable as his rival in the ‘town-hall’ format which McCain loves.
After days of nasty campaign trail rhetoric, the two senators strolled onto the stage in Nashville, Tennessee, smiling broadly, and shook hands, but tension soon bubbled to the surface.
McCain, criticised for rarely looking at Obama during their first debate two weeks ago, let his dislike of his opponent show again, when he referred to him as ‘that one’ in a tense exchange over energy.
In another swipe, early in the debate, which saw the rivals roam a red carpeted stage with microphones taking questions from undecided voters, McCain mocked Obama on taxes.
‘Nailing down senator Obama’s various tax proposals is like nailing jell-o to the wall,’ he said.
Obama repeatedly made a show of ‘correcting’ McCain’s interpretation of his record and proposals, and hit his top talking point of tying the Republican to the unpopular economic legacy of president George W Bush.
‘I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the past eight years promoted by President Bush and supported by John McCain,’ Obama said.
Temperatures rose again when the debate veered into national security.
McCain cited the maxim that the United States should ‘talk softly, but carry a big stick,’ and slammed his rival who he said ‘likes to talk aloud.’
‘He has announced that he will attack Pakistan,’ McCain said, in a misrepresentation of Obama’s vow to hit al-Qaeda targets on the soil of the US anti-terror ally if Islamabad would not.
‘I am not going to telegraph my punches, which is what (Obama) did.’
Obama hit straight back, citing a YouTube video which showed a McCain joke misfiring when he sang ‘bomb, bomb Iran’ to the tune of an old Beach Boys hit.
‘Senator McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I’m green behind the ears and I’m just spouting off and he’s somber and responsible,’ Obama said.
‘This is a guy who sang, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don’t think is an example of speaking softly.’
A CNN national poll after the debate found that 54 percent of those asked thought Obama won and 30 per cent said McCain was victorious.
A CBS survey also gave the debate to Obama — 40 per cent to 26 per cent.