ANALYSIS: Not just McCain's night, but Obama's, too

<p>WASHINGTON -- Tuesday's debate in Nashville, Tenn., was supposed to be John McCain's night.</p><p>It was his favorite format, a town hall meeting with ordinary voters. His moment to unveil a new proposal for pulling the economy out of its slump. And, most important, one of his last chances to change the direction of a campaign in which undecided voters have been steadily drifting toward his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.</p><p>"Americans are angry, they're upset, and they're a little fearful," McCain said. "It's our job to fix the problem."</p><p>But whenever McCain expressed concern for citizens worried about their jobs and their savings, so too did Obama -- with a telling contrast in their terms.</p><p>McCain talked about drilling for oil and building nuclear power plants, parts of an energy policy that he said would help restart the economy. But Obama, taking aim at a group of voters that may decide the election, seized every opportunity to talk about issues that women cite as special concerns: education and health care.</p><p>McCain said providing health care for citizens was "a responsibility"; Obama went further, saying health care was "a right," and he specifically mentioned insurance coverage for maternity care and mammograms.</p><p>If McCain's principal mission was to change the course of the campaign, it was difficult to find evidence that he succeeded. In an empathy competition that lasted most of an hour, the two candidates battled to something like a draw. Most of the time, they repeated arguments they had often made before.</p><p>The only new element was a proposal from McCain to order the Treasury to buy $300 billion of troubled mortgages directly from homeowners and negotiate new fixed-rate mortgages based on the homes' depressed values. The $700 billion financial bailout plan that Congress passed last week allows the Treasury to buy mortgages directly but does not require it. Obama has said the Treasury should consider buying mortgages, but has not demanded it.</p><p>McCain did not spend much time on the proposal during the debate, though, and it was unclear that his plan was the kind of dramatic stroke that might stop what has appeared to be a gradual increase in support for Obama.</p><p>Most recent polls have shown a shift of voters, especially women and self-described independents, toward the Democratic candidate over the past three weeks. That movement has coincided with the sharpening of the nation's economic crisis.</p><p>In an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released Monday, for example, six in 10 voters said the economy would be the most important issue in determining their vote -- and those respondents favored Obama by a wide margin.</p><p>All year long, voters have said they considered the Democrat more able to handle economic problems, even as they said they considered the Republican more able to handle foreign policy issues.</p><p>McCain sought to remind voters Tuesday of their doubts about Obama's experience and knowledge on international issues, chiding the Democrat for stating openly that he would send U.S. troops to pursue terrorist leader Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan.</p><p>"Teddy Roosevelt used to say . . . talk softly, but carry a big stick. Senator Obama likes to talk loudly," McCain said.</p><p>McCain repeated oft-made charges that Obama was a liberal who never bucked his party's leaders, a big spender who would raise taxes, and an inexperienced hand at foreign policy -- yet in terms that were considerably milder than he has used on the campaign trail.</p><p>Obama, on the other hand, repeated his charges that McCain had helped deregulate the financial institutions at the root of the economic crisis, and that the Republican sought tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. But he spent most of his time emphasizing his own empathy for the voters' economic concerns.</p><p>He used the word "you" or "your" more than 90 times, as in: "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."</p><p>Aides for both campaigns had prepared their candidates for an aggressive debate.</p><p>McCain has sought to refocus attention since last weekend on Obama's background in an effort to reinforce voters' doubts about the first-term Illinois senator.</p><p>Earlier Tuesday, the McCain campaign released four separate statements highlighting Obama's past associations with William Ayers, a University of Illinois professor who co-founded the militant Weather Underground group in the 1960s that planted bombs in government buildings.</p><p>Obama's campaign also has fired back this week by releasing a video and other details about McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s.</p><p>McCain and four other senators were accused of intervening with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, an Arizona businessman who headed a savings and loan that later failed. Keating was sent to jail for fraud. The Senate Ethics Committee cleared McCain of wrongdoing but said he had "exercised poor judgment."</p><p>By comparison, the candidates on Tuesday evening were models of courteous restraint. Disciplined, perhaps, by the fact that they were talking directly to ordinary voters, McCain made no mention of Ayers, and Obama made no mention of the Keating Five.</p>