LITTLE CHANGE

by RAY FLEMING
IN this newspaper on Tuesday I predicted that night's TV debate between John McCain and Barack Obama would see some “hard-hitting exchanges”. My apologies to those who set their alarm and coffee-maker for 3am in order to catch the debate on CNN. It was not worth losing any sleep over. McCain had obviously decided not to risk in front of tens of millions TV viewers the negative personal campaigning against Obama which he and Sarah Palin are running in their speeches to their supporters. For his part Obama kept his cool except for one occasion when he insisted on correcting McCain's depiction of his tax proposals. The topics, perhaps inevitably given the current circumstances of continuing global financial breakdown, were pretty much as in the first debate - the economy and how to mend it, health care and how to pay for it, tax policies, change in Washington, Iraq, Russia and talking to Iran. Little, if anything, new was said on either side but Obama seemed more in control of his facts and ideas than McCain who rambled rather and failed at any point to make an outright winning argument. The polls reflected this balance: CBS reported 40-26 per cent for Obama and 34 calling it a draw -- a no-score draw, actually. One of the disappointments of the debate proved to be the “town-hall” format: it was not much more than a Q&A session and lacked any free public participation of any kind.