McCain, Obama clash over economy in a testy debate
Obama blames Bush and the GOP for the downturn, while McCain proposes a homeowner bailout.
NASHVILLE — John McCain and Barack Obama tussled over taxes, diplomacy and personal judgment in an often testy debate Tuesday night that featured none of the raw character attacks that have lately dominated the presidential campaign.
After another day of plunging fortunes on Wall Street, the two candidates picked up where their last encounter left off. Obama blamed the nation's economic woes on the Bush administration -- aided and abetted, he suggested, by the Republican senator from Arizona.
"While it's true that nobody's completely innocent here, we have had over the last eight years the biggest increases in deficit spending and national debt in our history," Obama said. "And Sen. McCain voted for four out of five of those George Bush budgets."
McCain again sought to distance himself from the unpopular incumbent -- at one point he dismissed a "Bush-Cheney energy bill" he opposed -- and portrayed himself as a pragmatic problem-solver with a history of bucking Washington for the greater good.
"I have a clear record of bipartisanship," McCain said. ". . . . Sen. Obama has never taken on his leaders of his party on a single issue."
Addressing the economic crisis, McCain offered one of his most significant proposals of the campaign, saying he would order the Treasury secretary to immediately "buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate . . . at the diminished value of those homes, and let people be able to make those . . . payments and stay in their homes."
McCain's $300-billion plan, a turnabout from an earlier position, would require a radical shift in the government's approach. It raised several questions the McCain campaign could not immediately answer, including what its potential impact would be on efforts to remedy the global credit crisis.
With less than four weeks until the election, the 90-minute session before a national television audience presented McCain one of his last best chances to turn around a contest that seems to be moving decidedly in Obama's direction. There was no obvious momentum-shifting moment, but unlike their first debate on Sept. 26, the two made little effort to hide their seemingly mutual contempt.
