NASHVILLE- John McCain and Barack Obama drew sharp contrasts on taxes, the economy and foreign policy Tuesday as the two battled to capture both the mantle of reformer and the votes of undecided Americans in a town- hall-style debate.
In the shadow of another disastrous day on Wall Street and an increasingly nasty race, the two presidential candidates clashed on nearly every question asked by moderator Tom Brokaw and a handful of undecided voters at Belmont University. Yet, most of their comments were cautious and well-scripted lines from the campaign trail.
CNN’s national poll of debate watchers found that 54 percent said Obama did the best job, compared to 30 percent who said McCain performed better. While 51 percent of those polled said they had a favorable opinion of McCain, unchanged from before the debate started, 64 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Obama, up 4 percentage points from before the debate.
By more than a 2-1 margin, 65 percent to 28 percent, more people said they found Obama more likable than McCain during the debate, according to the CNN/ap Research Corp. survey.
On the question of who won the debate, a CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll of uncommitted voters found a similar result. Forty percent said Obama won, 26 percent said McCain won, and 34 percent thought it was a tie.
“There wasn’t much new from the past debate, but they did present voters with clear contrasts,” said Diana B. Carlin, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas who has surveyed political debates for more than 20 years. “They had very different philosophies, and as an undecided voter, if you were looking for something particular, you probably found it.”
Despite the trash-talking that led up to the second presidential debate, the candidates generally steered clear of character attacks and instead slapped each other’s records. Although both tried to reach out to the audience, the debate was devoid of any remarkable events like the “I feel your pain” moment by Bill Clinton in 1992.
Republican McCain, fighting to gain momentum in the wake of national polls that show him trailing Democrat Obama, proposed to help homeowners with a $300 billion federal cash infusion.
“I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes, at the diminished value of those homes, and let people make those, be able to make those payments and stay in their homes. Is it expensive? Yes,” he said. (His campaign said the money would be part of the $700 billion “rescue” plan.)
Obama, who often focused on the middle class, stressed his tax-cut plan for those making under $250,000 a year.
“It means help for homeowners so that they can stay in their homes,” he said. “It means that we are helping state and local governments set up road projects and bridge projects that keep people in their jobs. And then long term we’ve got to fix our health care system, and we’ve got to fix our energy system that is putting such an enormous burden on families.”
The 90-minute debate came 28 days before Election Day. About 80 people, picked by the independent Gallup Organization, attended the event. About one-third was undecided, another third leaned toward McCain and the final third was shifting toward Obama.
Both candidates agreed on a gloomy forecast for Wall Street and Main Street but were optimistic that the right leader could help pull the economy up by its bootstraps.
McCain blamed the mortgage crisis on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as Obama’s “cronies and friends” there. Obama said the economic meltdown was the “final verdict” on the Bush administration’s failed economic policies, as well as McCain’s backing of deregulation.
McCain painted Obama as inexperienced and naive on foreign policy and a hide-the-ball, tax-and-spend liberal.
“Nailing down Sen. Obama’s various tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall,” McCain said.
Obama characterized McCain as erratic and a continuation of the Bush administration. He also criticized McCain for possessing the “wrong judgment” on foreign-policy issues, such as the war in Iraq, and stretching the truth not only about Obama’s record but his own.
“I think the ‘Straight Talk Express’ lost a wheel on that one,” Obama said, referring to the way McCain construed Obama’s tax plan.
See-sawing between sitting on stools and walking around the horseshoe-shaped stage, McCain and Obama were generally polite, but at times could not hide their annoyance with one another.
Immediately after being introduced, McCain said to Obama: “It’s good to be with you at a town-hall meeting,” a swipe at Obama for rejecting the Arizona’s senator’s request to hold joint town halls during the election.
He later referred to Obama as “that one.”
As the two sparred on foreign policy, McCain said he believes in Theodore Roosevelt’s mantra of “speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Obama retorted: “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.”
Going into the second to last debate, the candidates had different objectives and challenges. Obama, usually more comfortable in large venues, needed to exhibit a more emotional, personal touch with the goal of solidifying his national lead. McCain, who excels in small town-hall events, wanted to reverse the damage he has sustained over the past few weeks, while not coming across as angry.
Carlin, the Kansas professor, said she thought both candidates did what they had to do, though “they can’t really do anything radically different at this stage.”
FACT CHECK
John McCain
Said one way out of the financial crisis is to “stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us.”
The facts: Although he didn’t spell it out, he was referring — as he has in the past — to purchases of oil from countries hostile to the U.S. The figure is inflated and misleading. The U.S. is not spending nearly that much on oil imports, and roughly one-third of what it does spend goes to friendly countries such as Canada, Mexico and Britain.
Said he would provide a $5,000 refundable tax credit for families to buy health insurance “rather than mandates or fines for small businesses as Sen. Obama’s plan calls for.”
The facts: Obama’s health care plan does not impose mandates or fines on small businesses. He would provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on health premiums paid on behalf of employees. Also, large employers that do not offer meaningful coverage or contribute to the cost of coverage would be required to pay a percentage of payroll toward the costs of a public insurance plan. But small businesses would be exempt from that requirement.
Complained that Obama’s “cronies and friends” had received money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The fact: McCain has his own ties to the mortgage giants. Rick Davis, his campaign manager, has been a focus of attention because Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae paid him or his lobbying firm more than $2 million dating back to 2000.
Said Obama had voted for tax increases “94 times.”
The facts: This inflated count, heard before, includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. An analysis by found that 23 of the votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all, seven were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, and 11 would have increased taxes on only those making more than $1 million a year.
Barack Obama
“I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Sen. McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us. It hasn’t worked out that way. And so now we’ve got to take some decisive action.”
The facts: McCain has indeed favored less regulation over the years but supported tighter rules and accountability on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years before the start of a financial crisis prompted in part by those giant mortgage underwriters. Obama was not a leader in that unsuccessful effort. Some of the current problems can be traced to legislation passed in 1999 that lifted many regulations over the financial industry. That deregulation was championed by then-Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, a McCain supporter, but also by President Clinton, who signed the legislation, and by former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, now a top Obama economic adviser.
Said McCain’s proposal to give people a tax credit in exchange for treating employers’ health insurance contributions as taxable wages amounts to “what one hand giveth, the other hand taketh away.”
The facts: Obama’s suggestion that McCain’s health care plan is a wash for families is misleading. McCain offers families a $5,000 tax credit to help them buy health insurance. The corresponding increase in taxable wages would result in a much smaller cost than the value of the tax credit, at least at first. Over time, the value of the tax credit may diminish as premiums rise. However, the Tax Policy Center estimates that McCain’s plan would increase the federal deficit by $1.3 trillion over 10 years — mainly because it would lead to less tax revenue coming in, meaning it is a true tax break overall.
