WASHINGTON — John McCain faced a tough challenge Friday in his first debate with Barack Obama: Could the Republican candidate bounce back from a wayward week embroiled in the nation's financial crisis and regain solid footing for his presidential campaign?
Obama, his Democratic opponent, faced a challenge, too: Could a first-term senator go up against a 26-year veteran of Congress, an acknowledged expert on national security issues, and hold his own as a potential commander in chief?
In a 98-minute bout that seemed to grow more heated by the minute, Arizona Sen. McCain pummeled his Illinois counterpart with one repeated charge: The Democrat, he said, was "naive," even "dangerous," unqualified to lead the nation in time of war.
"Sen. Obama doesn't seem to understand," McCain said in several variations, with a sad half-smile that seemed to mix condescension and distaste.
"I honestly don't believe that Sen. Obama has the knowledge or experience" to make a good president, McCain said.
But Obama parried most of McCain's punches, ignored others, and took every opportunity to repeat the main foreign policy themes of his campaign: The war in Iraq was a mistake, he argued, a failure of "judgment" -- a word he used five times -- on the part of both McCain and President Bush, an error that meant the nation took "our eye off the ball" in the war against terrorism.
"John," Obama said, "when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong.
"If the question is who is best equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military . . . then we can take a look at our judgment," Obama said.
It was no surprise that McCain emphasized his experience and knowledge on national security; that has been a central rationale for his campaign from the start. Nor was it a surprise that Obama countered by repeating the word "judgment" and by seeking to link McCain to Bush, whose popularity remains at a low point.
If McCain needed to land a knockout blow in this debate, it was not clear that he did. Obama's campaign deliberately sought to make foreign policy the focus of the first debate, in hopes that their candidate would benefit merely by surviving a challenge on the ground where the Republican was favored.
