Post-debate polling favors Obama over McCain

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-09 09:35

McCain running mate Sarah Palin has questioned Obama's ties to William Ayers, who 40 years ago was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings. Obama had a limited relationship with Ayers, who lives in the same neighborhood and teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Democrats have criticized McCain for his role in a 1980s banking scandal. He was one of five senators who had accepted contributions from Charles Keating Jr., a real estate speculator and savings and loan owner. Keating's institution failed and cost many investors their life savings in uninsured financial products.

Neither figure came up during Tuesday's debate. Nor did either candidate call the other a liar, a familiar charge in this contentious campaign.

The closest: "You know, Sen. McCain, I think the Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one," Obama said.

During a discussion of an energy bill McCain offered up a two-word phrase that drew a quick reaction from the Obama campaign.

"You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one," McCain said, pointing at his opponent.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said after the debate, "John McCain was all over the map on the issues, and he is so angry about the state of his campaign that he referred to Barack Obama as 'that one', last time he couldn't look at Sen. Obama, this time he couldn't say his name."

McCain also suggested some evasiveness on Obama's part: "Nailing down Sen. Obama's various tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. There has been five or six of them and if you wait long enough, there will probably be another one."

In one pointed confrontation on foreign policy, Obama bluntly challenged McCain's steadiness. "This is a guy who sang 'bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,' who called for the annihilation of North Korea, that I don't think is an example of speaking softly."

That came in response to McCain's accusation that Obama had threatened to invade Pakistan.

McCain said his rival "was wrong about Iraq and the surge. He was wrong about Russia when they committed aggression against Georgia. And in his short career he does not understand our national security challenges. We don't have time for on-the-job training."

Obama countered with a trace of sarcasm, "There are some things I don't understand. I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and al Qaida are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Senator McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment."

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