The Obama-McCain event tonight consists of two parallel press conferences that happen to be in the same room. The detailed rules hammered out by the two campaigns state that the questions were to have been submitted in advance by the audience members and over the Internet. The questioner may not change the question and the microphone will be cut off after the question. Neither the questioner nor the moderator, Tom Brokaw of NBC, may ask followup questions. The candidates may not question each other. There will be no debate at all. Who does this format favor? Probably neither candidate. Usually the questions the general public asks aren't very hard, are largely predictable in advance, and have already been asked 100 times ("how will you fix the economy?"). The candidates have stock answers they will reel off. Given the current state of polling, McCain needs to shake things up and Obama needs to keep the status quo. An event that doesn't rock the boat much thus de facto works for Obama. Nevertheless, once in a while something unexpected happens at one of these events. In 1992, someone asked the candidates how the national debt affected them personally. George H.W. Bush was flustered by the question (by which the questioner probably meant the budget deficit) and it threw him off stride somewhat. Thanks to Political Wire for the pointer to the event rules.
The town hall debate tonight is being held in Tennessee, which is as republican as it gets. Racism runs deep in Tennessee and pretty much the only issue that these voters care about is abortion.
Belmont University, where the debate is being held, is made up of McCain supporters, according to an NPR report this morning. So I'm wondering what are the chances that the audience is truly undecided. Even if the audience is undecided, the audience is likely to lean republican. It seems they'd have to bus in audience members from New York to get an unbiased audience. Is there such a thing as the undecided voter?
Will it be another debate like the Gibson, Stephanopoulos-moderated primary debate?
Will the questions focus on issues or bring about character attacks? McCain wants to scare up votes for himself, so he'll likely be luring Obama throughout the debate. I'd say this Tennessee audience will be stacked against Obama, but that's not necessarily a negative for Obama.
Here's what the local paper has to say:
Tennessean: As the two men get set for their second presidential campaign debate at
8 tonight in Nashville, otherwise known as Music City, Republican nominee McCain needs to change the words and the music. Democrat Obama would just as soon sing in the same key from now until Election Day.
The debate, a town-hall-style affair at Belmont University, comes after one of the roughest periods of the general election campaign for McCain and an escalation in personal attacks from both sides.
Amid rising economic anxiety while Congress struggled to pass a $700 billion bailout of the mortgage and credit industries, McCain has fallen in national polls and in several key battleground states. The Arizona senator had pulled even or ahead in early September after choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, but even her steady debate performance last week did not close the gap for the GOP.
The case for McCain gets tougher for each day the focus remains on economic worries and for each day Obama avoids a major misstep that would renew concerns about his preparedness for the presidency.
The campaign has taken a decidedly negative turn since Thursday night's vice presidential debate. Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists" — a reference to his political ties to former Weather Underground radical William Ayers. The Obama campaign released a lengthy Web video Monday about McCain's role in the Keating Five S&L scandal of the late 1980s.
The new nastiness sets up a caustic atmosphere for tonight's debate. Here are three things to look for:
