Second Presidential Debate of the 2008 General Election Campaign
Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn. October 7, 2008
Participants: Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, Democrat, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Republican.
Moderator--Tom Brokaw, NBC News.
BROKAW: Good evening from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm Tom Brokaw of NBC News. And welcome to this second presidential debate, sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
Tonight's debate is the only one with a townhall format. The Gallup Organization chose 80 uncommitted voters from the Nashville area to be here with us tonight. And earlier today, each of them gave me a copy of their question for the candidates.
From all of these questions -- and from tens of thousands submitted online -- I have selected a long list of excellent questions on domestic and foreign policy.
Neither the commission nor the candidates have seen the questions. And although we won't be able to get to all of them tonight, we should have a wide-ranging discussion one month before the election.
Each candidate will have two minutes to respond to a common question, and there will be a one-minute follow-up. The audience here in the hall has agreed to be polite, and attentive, no cheering or outbursts. Those of you at home, of course, are not so constrained.
The only exception in the hall is right now, as it is my privilege to introduce the candidates, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Gentlemen?
(APPLAUSE)
Gentlemen, we want to get underway immediately, if we can. Since you last met at Ole Miss 12 days ago, the world has changed a great deal, and not for the better. We still don't know where the bottom is at this time.
As you might expect, many of the questions that we have from here in the hall tonight and from online have to do with the American economy and, in fact, with global economic conditions.
I understand that you flipped a coin.
And, Sen. Obama, you will begin tonight. And we're going to have our first question from over here in Section A from Alan Schaefer (ph).
QUESTION: With the economy on the downturn and retired and older citizens and workers losing their incomes, what's the fastest, most positive solution to bail these people out of the economic ruin?
OBAMA: Well, Alan, thank you very much for the question. I want to first, obviously, thank Belmont University, Tom, thank you, and to all of you who are participating tonight and those of you who sent e-mail questions in.
I think everybody knows now we are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And a lot of you I think are worried about your jobs, your pensions, your retirement accounts, your ability to send your child or your grandchild to college.
And I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush....
Parting thoughts: So Bill Ayers, despite all the huffing and puffing about him going into the debate, was a no-show in the debate rhetoric -- and for that, voters who wanted the nominees to focus on the future probably were thankful.
But those voters also might have been disappointed by what, to us, was the lack of a clear, clarion call from either Barack Obama or John McCainon how the country -- under a new administration -- will confront what appear to be unprecedented economic challenges.
McCain provided one surprise by using the forum to unveil what he called a new plan to have the Treasury Department come to the aid of homeowners struggling to renegotiate their mortgages. But it was unclear how that expands on -- if at all -- the role the agency will play under the sweeping financial rescue plan signed into law last week. (The Obama camp, in a post-debate e-mail, insists it does not.) Nor did McCain elaborate on or spotlight his proposal after laying it on the table.
Too often, the men yammered over their Senate voting records -- symptomatic, as we noted below, of a congressional mentality that doesn't translate well in a presidential debate.
More vision -- something Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan would have spun out effortlessly -- would have better served Obama's and McCain's purposes.
*********
7:30 p.m. What Brokaw terms a question with a “certain Zen-like quality” to it ends the proceedings. The nominees are asked, “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?”
Presented with that variation of the perennial job interview query most of us dread –- What are your shortcomings? –- Obama pretty much punted....
College football coaches every week on their own programs talk about how terribly strong their opponent is this coming Saturday, even if the other team hasn't won in 32 games. To hear them tell it, the home team will be lucky to escape with most of their uniforms after the game.
Same going on today by the Democratic National Committee, trying to set the expectations bar high in tonight's town-hall presidential debate for John McCain, who prefers this style and has practiced it for years.
In fact, McCain suggested he and Barack Obama do 10 weekly town-hall sessions around the country all summer. The freshman Illinois senator initially seemed interested but on further reflection he demurred.
The second presidential debate is fast approaching. We'll be live blogging the town-hall style forum here, beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST, like we did the first faceoff between John McCain and Barack Obama and the encounter between the vice presidential nominees.
Until then, here's a short list of some of the most interesting debate-related stories from all over the Internet:
Town-hall debates are supposed to be about the voters. So we first present you with two up-close looks at voters in swing states. The New Yorker's George Packer wrote about disaffected voters in Ohio, and our own Peter Wallsten wrote about small-town Virginians.
Wallsten also took note of the increasingly negative turn of the campaign -- and what that means for tonight.
The New York Times, by the way, reported that at least 6 million questions have been submitted to be asked at the debate.
Rolling Stone is out with a scathing profile of McCain (no surprise about that slant). Meanwhile, our own Dan Morain and Bob Drogin recently profiled the man behind McCain -- chief strategist Steve Schmidt.
An finally, here's an interesting piece on Google search trends during last week's vice presidential debate. Did you know that the most popular search during the debate was "maverick?" Or that the number of Google queries about Joe Biden jumped by a factor of more than 70? The searches for Sarah Palin, who had been very much in the public eye before the debate, increased only by a factor of 6.
Want to know the buzzwords of tonight's debate? You'll have to stay tuned . . .
NASHVILLE -- Look for Sen. John McCain to draw a personal contrast with freshman Illinois Sen. Barack Obama at tonight’s debate.
This, according to McCain confidant Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
McCain may segue into the realm of personal biography by saying, “When it comes between me and Sen Obama, you know me,’’ Graham said in an interview with The Times' Peter Nicholas here before the debate.
“One thing I want you to know about him is," Graham continued, as if he was McCain speaking, "when [Obama] started in politics he started in the left lane in Chicago. And Bill Ayers [the former 1960s radical and Weather Underground co-founder] was somebody well-known to the left. He was a guy who could get you started and he did. Did a fundraiser for him. Been sort of an associate in Sen. Obama’s political aspirations. And now he’s trying to deny those associations because most Americans wouldn’t feel comfortable having Bill Ayers jump-start your campaign.’’
NASHVILLE –- According to Barack Obama's chief political strategist, the freshman Illinois senator is prepared for his GOP rival to “take the gloves off” at tonight’s debate here, continuing the Republican's assault of recent days.
But David Axelrod says Obama will try to stay focused on the global economic crisis, not just any attacks by Sen. John McCain.
“We’re prepared for a very aggressive debate,” Axelrod told reporters aboard Obama’s plane today en route to Nashville from North Carolina.
Should the need arise, Axelrod said, taking off one glove as a preemptory warning himself, Obama will remind Americans during the debate here at Belmont University of the Arizona senator’s role in the “Keating 5” thrift scandal of the 1980s.
“The Keating case is pretty germane to the discussion we’re having right now,” Axelrod said. “The Keating issue was one....
The sacrifices these presidential candidates are willing to make to occupy a white house is truly amazing.
Word today from our Swamp blogging colleague John McCormick, on the campaign plane of Democrat Barack Obama, is that he didn't get to watch his favorite Chicago White Sox get dumped from the baseball playoffs.
Probably the nation's highest-profile ChiSox fan, Obama was apparently too busy with political business to watch his team get knocked out last night.
Does the country really want that kind of lack of devotion in the Oval Office?
According to chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, "The senator was actually working during the game, but was dismayed to hear the news."
Axelrod spoke on a flight from Asheville, N.C., where Obama has been campaigning and in debate preparations since Saturday evening, to Nashville for tonight's townhall debate-style presidential forum.
On the other hand, with Illinois' electoral votes presumably already up on his scoreboard, maybe Obama really did watch and root for Chicago but just doesn't want to offend one single Devil Rays fan/voter from the crucial state of Florida.
Did Obama see any of the Sox playoff games?
"He saw very little," said Axelrod, also a Chicagoan. "You know, running for president is a demanding thing, man. You gotta make sacrifices.'' As a long-suffering Cubs fan, Axelrod should know.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, on the other hand, didn't have to worry about such athletic distractions.
His D'backs were, well, already out on the golf course.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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Jerome Corsi, the author of a controversial book attacking Barack Obama, has been detained in Kenya and is expected to be deported, The Times' Nairobi bureau chief, Edmund Sanders, reports.
Corsi is the author of "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," a bestselling book whose assertions -- that Obama was raised a Muslim and is secretly seething with "black rage" -- have been widely dismissed as false and based on little more than the author's desire to derail the Democrat's presidential candidacy.
Corsi arrived in Kenya Thursday to promote the book and to investigate Obama's ties to Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, according to a news release sent to the media by Corsi's publisher last week. In a chapter of Corsi's book titled "Kenya, Odinga, Communism, and Islam," the author claims Obama gave Odinga $1 million for his 2007 presidential campaign -- a claim both Obama and Odinga deny.
Corsi was detained on Tuesday by Kenyan immigration officials for failing to obtain the proper visa needed to work in the country. He told the Associated Press that he expects to be deported soon.
Obama, whose father was Kenyan and mother was American, is wildly popular in Kenya and the U.S. election is being closely followed in the country.
Corsi played a role in the 2004 presidential election with a book attacking that year's Democratic nominee, John Kerry. "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry" hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. "The Obama Nation" spent four weeks at the top of the bestseller list.
-- Kate Linthicum
Photo credit: Jerome Corsi arrives at the immigration department in Nairobi, Kenya / AP
John Edwards may have disappeared from the political radar, after his summertime admission of an extramarital affair, but his wife -- who was a major asset to her husband's Democratic presidential aspirations and also became a voice to be reckoned with on her own terms -- is re-establishing a public profile.
Recently, Elizabeth Edwardstalked with the Detroit Free Press about the storm of personal turmoil she's experienced. Today, she talked policy at conference co-sponsored by the Service Employees International Union in the key state of Virginia.
Appearing at the gathering in Richmond in her role as a senior fellow of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund, she excoriated John McCain's healthcare proposals.
Although the event was not officially linked to Barack Obama's campaign, it was in line with an increasing effort by the Democrat and his allies to focus attention on a significant policy difference between the two presidential candidates.
And Obama can be expected to seize every opportunity to harp on the issue during his townhall meeting with McCain tonight.
-- Don Frederick
You can now have instant alerts of every new Ticket item flashed directly to your cell. Just register here at Twitter. It's free. And The Ticket will be live-blogging that townhall debate tonight starting at 6 p.m. Pacific right here.
Republicans far and wide have eagerly jumped on the assertion Monday by top Barack Obama aide David Axelrod that the candidate was unaware of Bill Ayers' background as a violent radical when the two first met in the mid-1990s.
Sarah Palin pressed the GOP attack today while campaigning in Florida (our colleague Mark Silva has the details at the Swamp).
Sometimes, though, a particular surrogate may not match up well with delivering a particular message. That appeared to be the case this morning, on Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
Rudy Giuliani, sitting on the set's couch, castigated Obama for "a pattern" of apparently not being fully aware of the views and detects of some of his associates, mentioning the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Chicago crook Tony Rezko, along with Ayers. The bottom line, the former New York mayor said, was that all this showed Obama lacked "the judgment" to serve as president.
On camera next was Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, speaking from Nashville, the site of tonight's town hall faceoff between his candidate and John McCain. And Gibbs was ready with an acerbic response.
He noted that Giuliani has been the main advocate for Bernard Kerik, New York's former police commissioner, to be named head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. President Bush made the nomination, only to quickly withdraw it when a morass of legal and personal problems surrounding Kerik surfaced (he currently is under federal indictment for conspiracy, mail fraud and several other charges).
As a result, Gibbs said, "taking judgment advice" from Giuliani "is a little bit like being called ugly by a frog."
John McCain's campaign has denounced and rejected a racially charged, anti-Barack Obama newspaper column written by one of the Republican campaign's organizers in Virginia,and has removed the author-activist from his post as a member of the candidate's statewide leadership team.
The column by Bobby May appeared in a southwestern Virginia newspaper,The Voice, and drew attention after it was cited in a Sunday Los Angeles Times report about how voters in that mostly white region were reacting to potentially electing the country's first black president.
In his day, Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Richard S. Fuld used his big paychecks to spread campaign money among Democrats and a few Republicans. Lately, he received a little bit back, thanks to Senate banking committee chairman Christopher Doddand Hillary Clinton.
Henry Waxman, the Beverly Hills Democrat, summoned Fuld to Capitol Hill on Monday and grilled him about his pay, noting that Fuld appeared to have received $480 million this decade.
“Is this fair?” Waxman said, as The Times' Jim Puzzanghera reported.
Fuld said he probably received "a little bit less than $250 million -- still a large number, though."
Fuld got rid of some of that money in the form of....
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Our Bloggers
Don Frederick has served as an editor helping guide coverage of every presidential election since 1984. He is a third-generation Washingtonian, so watching the political world comes naturally to him.
A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
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A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.