AFP
Tuesday, October 7, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AFP) - Republican John McCain faced fierce pressure in Tuesday’s second presidential debate to grab a lifeline for his sliding campaign in the increasingly nasty White House duel with Barack Obama.

The rivals will come face-to-face in McCain’s favored town-hall style setting in Nashville, Tennessee, at 8:00 pm (0100 GMT) after the Republican’s barrage on Obama’s character ignited a war of words with the pace-setting Democrat.

Exactly four weeks before the election on November 4, the debate marks one of Arizona Senator McCain’s last chances to transform a race which seems to be sliding away, with Obama profiting politically from the economic meltdown.

Obama has solid leads in most national opinion polls, and has taken a stranglehold on the US electoral map.

McCain’s combative running mate Sarah Palin Monday unleashed an fresh assault on Obama, suggesting he did not share basic American values and slamming him over what he said were questionable past relationships.

Palin charged Obama with associating with terrorists, a reference to his past acquaintance with 1960s radical William Ayres.

“This is a man who does not see America as you and I see it, as the greatest force for good in the world,” Palin said Monday.

Obama hit back at McCain by pointing to his embroilment in a devastating 1980s financial scandal which wiped out the savings of many retired people, and connection to jailed savings and loans tycoon Charles Keating.

A McCain supporter asked the Republican on Monday “when are you going to take the gloves off?” McCain replied with a grin — “How about Tuesday night?”

Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod said that Obama hoped the debate would zero in on the financial crisis and the economic fears stalking everyday Americans but said his candidate was ready to defend himself.

“(McCain) has signalled to his supporters that he is going to be very aggressive in this debate, that he is going to take the gloves off,” Axelrod told reporters on Obama’s plane.

“I hope during the course of that he also has time to speak to the state of our economy, which is in deep trouble right now. But we are prepared for a very aggressive debate.”

The world economy is in crisis.

“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” - John McCain, Dec. 2007

Game Over.

Coulda had Ron Paul.

I wonder if either candidate would offer Paul a cabinet position?

The global elite that prop McBama up as the false choices are scared sh!tless of Dr.Paul.

"That one," pointing at Obama??? WTF was that?

Man, McCain got spanked tonight.

Now he refuses to shake Obama's hand. Classy.

I turned it off because McCain was making me angry.I am beginning to see Maverick is a nice way of saying a-hole.

"This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out. It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survives this."

- Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic website
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/live-blogging-n.html#more

that was a class act, wasn't it?

Half the time they were busy saying that they agreed with each other and the other half they spent slinging B.S. at each other and nitpicking, rather than talking about issues.

What a waste of Oxygen that was, I'd rather have watched a Marathon of the Roseanne Barr talk show.