First question: An Obama gimme.

McCain's going to buy all mortgages at their inflated prices and renegotiate them down to market value?

So much for no follow-ups.

McCain is getting killed here. He's gotta at least pretend to have an interest in economic policy.

And Obama goes right to the attack, bringing up the "fundamentals of the economy are sound" comment.

Andrew... a little early to declare that!

Rhody, I like the follow-ups. The whole point of a single moderator format is to have someone there who can keep the pols honest when they wander off too deeply into their stump speeches.

Good for McCain, though, bringing up Obama's interest in Fannie and Freddie. Could have had a twofer if he'd brought in O's short term of service in which he accomplished his second-place receipt of money from the two organizations.

McCain forgot the questioner's name. Is he tiring this quick? And Obama was right on it.

Regulation v. deregulation. I'm not sure this is a budge-able line anymore for each side.

I agree, Andrew. They shouldn't have raised the prospect of no follow-ups in the first place.

Another strong follow-up from Brokaw!

A bit delayed here.

Hey, I'm all in favor of Senator Obama's 95% tax reduction for whomever. The question is, what is he cutting to accomplish that? And does he still think he can implement his costly shopping list of campaign promises?

Third time McCain's said "buy up these bad loans." Must be a key strategy.

Will Obama tell questioner #3 not to be so bitter?

Excellent question, Ms. Finch.

Obama takes a bipartisan question and runs to partisanship. Running against George Bush again.

This seems like a strong suit for McCain... bucked my party, and all.

What is Obama actually planning to cut? Is this one of those "I'm not spending as much as is theoretically possible, therefore it's a cut" arguments?

How much you wanna bet that Saturday Night Live has Tina Fey pop up in the audience as Sarah Palin and ask a question?

(That could bring in the whole cast of imitators.)

Finally, we're getting combative. Does Obama counter with the bear DNA study?

The guy in the green shirt looks either confused or extremely concerned.

We can do all 3: Strike #2 against McCain not showing interest in actual policy.

Obama's not going to fit all 3 priorities into 1 minute.

Oooo... stayed away from entitlements and threw in education.

re Obama: Saying we're going to do them all isn't setting priorities.

They need to give Brokaw a trapdoor button he can activate when the candidates go overtime in the discussion period.

Terrible answer from McCain. Question: How are people other than the military personnel going to sacrifice? McCain: Cut defense contractors.

(And wasn't the question for Obama?)

Will the overhead projector become the new Bridge to Nowhere? John, I want a tax cut too, but it would require getting out of Iraq.

Obama is right on the "go out and shop" issue.

Obama's got several small bald spots. His follicles think he has this won already.

Obama is making the "fiscal responsibility is raising taxes to pay for massive government spending" argument.

Tough to ask a teacher to tighten her belt? Hah!

I read somewhere recently that Obama only ever refers to union public-sector jobs when he talks about working folk. It's true.

Ooo, 50% of small businesses will have increased taxes under Senator Obama. Good one.

Obama: I don't want to follow the rules, and I'm going to ignore the next question.

McCain should leave the zingers to Palin. The jello shot and "I've got news for you" come off weak, like when Reagan tried to recycle "There you go again" on Mondale.
Tom's getting cheesed.

Brokaw drops the hammer on time limits!

Obama is over-promising, according to what the Tax Policy Center says.

"A few percent of small businesses make more than $250,000 per year." How's Obama measuring that?

Is McCain going to tell us what the social security fix is?

C'mon, John. You can't say "solving Social Security is simple" without a few words of explanation.

"Social Security's not that tough?" C'mon, John.
If we were playing a "my friends" drinking game, the screen would be a blur right now (if I wasn't still comatose from playing "maverick" last Thursday).

... "investments", also known as spending "tax dollars". Doesn't this man have a mental calculator to keep track of all his initiatives?

Do voters actually pay attention when candidates throw out numbers like: "He voted against that 23 times"? Out of how many? Under what circumstances? Or is it just to add a bit of "I'm-not-making-this-up" flavor?

They should replace the lights with laser beams that go off when the candidates go over.

Good for McCain pointing out that he votes against bills because they're larded.

Another gimme for Obama: "Should healthcare be treated as a commodity?"

I have a tough time listening to these guys each claim the other stuffs more pork when they both pleased the rum and NASCAR lobbies for a combined $300 million last Friday.

Here comes Obama's proposal for a Fannie Mae for healthcare...

Obama is arguing that corporate employees should be allowed a tax break that the self-employed aren't allowed.

And it makes no sense to pay for preventative care through an insurance program.

NASCAR is very important, Rhody.

You're right, Monique. The decline of NASCAR would kill the manufacturers of Confederate flags.

On insurance comapanies not paying, does this mean Obama will repeal ERISA?

No, but it does mean that Obama will drive up the cost of health insurance.

And why, by the way, shouldn't citizens be able to weigh the likelihood of getting cancer against the cost of a health insurance program?

"The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established pension and health plans in private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans."

http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/health-plans/erisa.htm

(I had no idea.)

I'd like to renew my call for commercials during these events.

No idea!?!?!? I have a few links I have to send you, Monique...

Justin, instead of commercials, how about PBS like pledge breaks where Gwen Ifill hawks her book?

Obama Doctrine versus McCain Doctrine: Excellent question, Mr. Brokaw.

Good move by Obama - a good argument against the Iraq war needs to tie in the cost to both our economy and military strength and preparedness. Not all anti-war Democrats have made that case.

Excellent, Tom Brokaw! "What is the Obama Doctrine for the use of force?"

Does Obama have any clue what conditions inside of Iraq were like under Saddam, as he makes his humanitarian intervention argument?

Obama Doctrine: Invade when genocide is happening? How does that not include Iraq? Hussein was only run-of-the-mill "cruel"?

Obama is leaning towards the "Anthony Lewis" doctrine: we will only intervene when it's not in our direct national interest, so the rest of the world sees how nice we are.

McCain Doctrine: "Must do whatever we can, but we must understand the limits of our capabilities."

McCain's answer solid foreign-policy speak, but doesn't give the public much guidance on when he would or wouldn't intervene.

So what would Obama do to take the battle to al Qaeda in Pakistan. That was the question; that's the key point. Obama's going to send money to Pakistan and bribe the country for help.

What does "not coddling" a Pakistan dictator look like, Senator Obama? Does it include American boots in Islamabad?

Obama: a bin Laden hawk.
McCain: Let's Pearl Harbor Pakistan.

If Obama is saying 1) we should be promoting democracy, even if ruling governments don't like it and 2) either you're with us or against us in hunting down Bin Laden, how far is he from the Bush Doctrine?

Oh-oh: "Bomb bomb Iran." Obama's not content to keep the ball on the ground and run out the clock. I could see McCain's gears running in the background: "How do I drop Bill Ayers?"
Another "my friends." How am I keeping my head up?

H'mm, how about half our deployments are in our national interest, Andrew, and half are for our image?

How do people feel about McCain's continuing low-intensity criticism of Obama? My gut feeling is that it's not really clicking, but I can't really relate to someone who's undecided at this point.

I've the same obstacle that you do, Andrew, but I do wonder whether the quick-attack Obama, after his whole "change politics" spiel, opens a wide field for McCain to disprove his supposedly wild temper and present himself as the calm and steady fighter.

McCain didn't take the bait. Palin's speechwriter is probably chewing on it as we speak.
This won't be a game-changer. Neither of them has made a major gaffe, and any sparks were allowed to die quickly.

I do know that I'm getting sick of the statement: "that's what we've been doing for the last eight years." Many of the problems they're discussing are much longer-term than that, and it's a show of pure rank partisanism for Obama to start the clock on the world's ills in 2000.

Obama calls Russia's behavior evil; will progressive heads explode as they accuse him of embracing a simplistic Manichaean view of the world?

Obama offers as a carrot to Iran that it would be able to "rejoin the community of nations." I think the campaigning senator must have missed Ahmadinejad's recent visit to the UN.

"it's a show of pure rank partisanism for Obama to start the clock on the world's ills in 2000."

Well said.

Interesting discrepancy in tone of the final thoughts:

Obama said we need to bring change to Washington; McCain said that the unprecedented times are going to force new and different challenges.

Well, that was 90 minutes of our lives we'll never get back. McCain's aggression wasn't effective, and these guys broke little new ground.

I agree with the Fox News contributors: The "townhall" aspect was entirely a washout. Brokaw (or whomever) pretty much picked predictable questions that could have been asked directly from the pundit.

Second debates have never been known to be decisive or memorably, and this one was no exception. It was a pretty boring debate, but I certainly can't blame the candidates. They seemed like they were trying to light a little fire under it, but the fake town hall format just smothered it. Tom Brokaw did even seem to know why he was there himself. He was an awful moderator. The audience questions could have been phoned in. Where did they find those people?

I have to agree with rhody that this was 90 minutes that we'll never get back!

A couple of thoughts:

Obama is becoming increasingly hawkish on foreign policy.

McCain brought up several good points, but once again there were no "knockout blows". That favors Obama as he just needed to come out of the debate standing.

I said a few weeks back that the Obama campaign would have to do more than just try to convince Americans that McCain is Bush II in order to win, because Americans would never buy it.

I may have spoken prematurely. Somehow Americans are taking the financial crisis out on McCain despite the fact that he was one of the five politicians that tried to reform Fannie Mae, while Obama supported policies that caused its demise.

It appears that most Americans don't understand the history or the economics of the issues at hand.

A Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll released today is now showing McCain trailing Obama by only 1.9 points (+/- 2.8) with only about 8% still undecided:

http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1575