KEY POINTS:
One of the more telling exchanges in the second presidential debate this week was, on the surface, one of the more innocuous.
Republican John McCain suggested billionaire financier Warren Buffett as a potential Treasury Secretary. Democrat Barack Obama casually agreed Buffett would be a "pretty good choice" but added "there are other folks out there" and quickly moved on to saving the middle class.
McCain was tossing out Buffett's name as a ploy, dangling it before all those moderate, independent voters he needs. As Buffett supports Obama, it was also a symbolic bipartisan flourish.
He's done it before, suggesting Buffett as a member of the proposed bailout oversight board along with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat. And he proposed the New York Attorney-General with the famous Democratic name, Andrew Cuomo, son of former mayor Mario, as someone who could head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
For his part, Obama's answer was a classic deflection to avoid talking specifics about how he would directly confront the financial crisis - as opposed to his willingness to push the longer-term economic policies he's been talking about for months.
It's hard to believe that Obama, with financial advisers such as former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, would not have detailed plans of who he wants and where, and what initial steps to take. As an example of how his campaign prepares, the words "palling around with terrorists" were barely out of Sarah Palin's mouth before his team was blasting back with a 13-minute "documentary" about McCain's link to a decades-old scandal and sending tens of millions of supporters an email link to it.
The United States is moving in seeming slow motion through a twilight nightmare where Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is running the country, Obama is trying to sit on his poll lead and avoid mistakes and ambushes, and McCain is trying to find something - anything - to stay in the game.
The second debate showed exactly why the candidates are in their very different positions.
Obama appeared more confident and commanding than in the first debate, less eager to please. He gave concise answers which communicated a thought-through vision. In its snapshot polling CNN found viewers thought he expressed his opinions more clearly by 60-30 per cent.
Obama has an invaluable ability to make sharp points and the occasional dig - "I think the Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one" - without appearing nasty. Meanwhile, McCain made the wrong sort of splash by referring to Obama as "that one". The CNN viewers thought McCain was the more negative, 68-17 per cent, and Obama the more likeable, 65-28 per cent.
After all the talk beforehand of McCain taking the gloves off, he worked hard at presenting a more even-tempered tone than the first debate. But often the CNN focus group worms seemed to flatline when he spoke, adding to the impression various polling data is giving that, in the current economic climate, voters are not listening to McCain as much.
The town hall debate format was supposed to suit McCain but the wide-angle shots of him wandering around the stage cruelly highlighted his physical stiffness from his old injuries and simply made him seem ancient.
McCain's attempts to make Obama sound "risky" over Pakistan have - twice now - allowed his opponent to sound tougher on terrorism than he is.
Obama has also been brutally effective in both debates at making George W. Bush McCain's running mate.
Almost the first thing he said at Wednesday's debate was: "This is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Senator McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us."
McCain has simply been unable to articulate an adequate response to it.
Announcing his new mortgage plan on Wednesday he said "and it's my proposal, it's not Senator Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal." But then he left it floating with no further details.
McCain cannot be written off, this far out from the election. But he needs to make next week's last debate count.
