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October 7th, 2008 at 11:31 pm

Video & Photos: Barack Obama John McCain Second Presidential Debate 10-7-08 [Full Video]

Barack Obama and John McCain, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama and Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain took part in the second Presidential debate of the 2008 election on October 7, 2008 at Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Tom Brokaw, NBC special correspondent and interim moderator of Meet the Press was the debate moderator, which focused on domestic and foreign policy and used a town hall format, with questions from the audience members and questions sent via the Internet. The debate was organized and sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan nonprofit corporation.

Barack Obama and John McCain, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

With public anxiety mounting over financial markets and the economy, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain engaged in a muted debate Tuesday night over who was to blame and whose plan would successfully address the problems.

In the second presidential debate, at Belmont University in Nashville, Mr. Obama faulted the Bush administration and by extension Mr. McCain for a deregulatory environment that he said had led to the economic meltdown. And Mr. McCain, pledging to aid struggling homeowners, offered a proposal to direct the federal government to save families from foreclosure by buying mortgages they could no longer afford.

Barack Obama and John McCain, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

“As president of the United States,” Mr. McCain said in response to an audience member’s question, “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.”

Barack Obama and John McCain, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

Mr. Obama, who has been gaining strength in recent polls, actively engaged Mr. McCain, and repeatedly focused on the bread-and-butter struggles of Americans, vowing to help them with a “rescue package” for the middle class, not only for banks and insurance companies on Wall Street. The first part of the package, he said, would be tax cuts for all American households making less than $250,000 a year.

“It means help for homeowners so that they can stay in their homes,” Mr. Obama continued. “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, we’ve got to fix our energy system that is putting such an enormous burden on families.”

Barack Obama, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

The plunging markets in the United States and overseas and a freeze in commercial and consumer credit added urgency to Tuesday night’s debate, with questioners at the town-hall-style forum pressing the candidates to say how they would address the financial crisis. But the candidates often seized on the questions to attack each other’s records. While Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain were outwardly civil, each watched warily, sometimes with a thin smile, sometimes with a look of exasperation, as the other spoke directly to the audience.

Tom Brokaw, moderator, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

Moderator Tom Brokaw

Source: Economic Struggles Dominate Debate

Foreign policy didn’t arise until an hour into the debate, on a question about how the economic stress would affect America’s ability to serve as a peacemaker in the world.

McCain responded with a recital of his long record of working on international affairs, contrasting it with Obama’s much shorter resume and poor judgement on issues like the troop surge in Iraq. “We don’t have the time for on-the-job training,” McCain said.

Barack Obama and John McCain, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

Obama also focused on foreign policy judgement, repeating his theme from the first debate that McCain was the one who had made a crucially wrong decision by originally supporting the war in Iraq.

The rhetoric grew more heated in answer to a question on Pakistan. McCain again chided Obama for saying the U.S. should “attack Pakistan” to chase al Qaeda, suggesting it was evidence that Obama was naïve. McCain quoted his hero, Theodore Roosevelt: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Obama insisted on making a follow-up statement, to the displeasure of moderator Tom Brokaw. “This is the man who sang ‘Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran’ and called for the annihilation of North Korea,” Obama said of McCain, suggesting these were not examples of “speaking softly.”

Barack Obama, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

Obama has established a consistent advantage on the national level and has also opened up narrow leads in nearly every swing state in the country, according to a host of recent independent surveys. The percentage of Americans who believe the country is on the right track is now barely above 10 percent, and a plurality of respondents in multiple polls have said they trust Obama to handle the economic crisis better than McCain.

Barack Obama and John McCain, Second 2008 Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008, Nashville, TN

That dynamic has prompted the McCain campaign to make public its intent to wage a more aggressive effort against Obama, focused on advancing the narrative that the Illinois Senator is too risky and inexperienced to hold the nation’s highest office. McCain himself said Monday in Albuquerque that there are “essential things we don’t know about Senator Obama,” and he is expected to highlight that theme during tonight’s debate by hammering at inconsistencies between Obama’s record and his campaign promises.

Source: Obama, McCain Clash Over the Economy, Foreign Policy

Photo credit: Getty Images North America, Reuters