John McCain was said to be a master of the town hall format and on Tuesday he showed why with quick, sometimes salty answers and with an unswerving line of attack on Barack Obama.
Obama started out the night with a performance worthy of Bill Clinton’s legendary showing in the town hall in 1992 as he carefully, compassionately answered questions from the undecided voters in the hall.
He spoke about high gas prices instead of high finances and answered economic questions simply and directly.
But as McCain started landing blows on Obama and moderator Tom Brokaw repeatedly inserted himself — even changing the rules at one point — McCain took control of the evening.
McCain was freewheeling in the debate, including with his own policy positions as he devoted his first few answers to a new proposal to have the federal government purchase the mortgages of struggling homeowners and then renegotiating the rates.
It was just the latest Hail Mary pass from a campaign that has been going long from the outset.
But it was in continuing to tweak Obama — sometimes with direct confrontations — that McCain found his stride.
“This is the most liberal, big spending record in the United States Senate,” McCain said, pointing to Obama.
As the discussion was tilting McCain’s way, the Democrat was the first to mention 9/11.
And while Obama credited the Bush Administration with the reaction to the terrorist attacks, he blamed the current occupant of the White House for not asking Americans to sacrifice more. Obama then spoke of home energy efficiency and an expanded Peace Corps.
From there, McCain was off to the races.
He tagged Obama on tax policy repeating Obama’s prior assertion that he might have to forgo tax increases in the event of a bad economy.
“I’ve got some news for you, Senator Obama,” McCain said, turning to face his opponent. “It’s bad.”
Obama offered his only real retort of the evening when he said, a little halfheartedly, that “A wheel came off the Straight Talk Express on that one.” But the momentum had clearly swung McCain’s way.
Asking the audience rhetorically which of the two candidates had voted for a behemoth Bush Administration energy bill, McCain hooked his thumb at Obama and said “That one.”
The order of the questioning, despite Brokaw’s distractions, also favored McCain, allowing him to close on national security issues and take the last question. His more somber tone for this last portion was summed up in a common refrain of his campaign.
“Senator Obama would have brought our troops home in defeat,” McCain said of Iraq. “I will bring them home in victory.”
