Presidential candidates square off in second showdown

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Barack Obama and John McCain clashed
repeatedly over the causes and cures for the worst economic crisis
in 80 years Tuesday night in a debate in which Republican McCain
called for a sweeping new program to keep homeowners from
foreclosure.
"It's my proposal. It's not Sen. Obama's proposal," McCain
said at the outset of a debate he hoped could revive his fortunes
in a presidential race trending toward his rival.
Democrat Obama said the current crisis was the "final verdict
on the failed economic policies of the last eight years" that
President Bush pursued and were "supported by Sen. McCain."
He contended that Bush, McCain and others had favored
deregulation of the financial industry, predicting that would "let
markets run wild and prosperity would rain down on all of us. It
didn't happen."
The debate was the second of three between the two major party
rivals, and the only one to feature a format in which voters posed
questions to the candidates.
"It's good to be with you at a town hall meeting," McCain
jabbed at his rival, who spurned the Republican's calls for
numerous such joint appearances across the fall campaign.
They debated on a stage at Belmont University in a race that has
lately favored Obama, both in national polls and in surveys in
pivotal battleground states.
The audience was selected by Gallup, the polling organization,
and was split three ways among voters leaning toward McCain, those
leaning toward Obama and those undecided.
Tom Brokaw of NBC, the moderator, screened their questions and
also chose others that had been submitted online.
The two men also competed to demonstrate their qualifications as
reformers at a time voters are clamoring for change.
McCain accused Obama of being the Senate's second-highest
recipient of donations from individuals at Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, the two now-disgraced mortgage industry giants.
"There were some of us who stood up against this," McCain said
of the lead-up to the financial crisis. "There wee others who took
a hike."
Obama shot back that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, has
a stake in a Washington lobbying firm that received thousands of
dollars a month from Freddie Mac until recently.
Pivoting quickly to show his concern with members of the
audience listening from a few feet away, he said, "You're not
interested in politicians pointing fingers. You're interested in
the impact on you."
But that didn't stop the two men from criticizing one another
repeatedly as the topics turned to energy, spending, taxes and
health care.
Obama said McCain was going to require taxes on the health
benefits workers receive from their employers at the same time his
plan would wipe out the ability of states to enforce their own
regulations to require tests such as mammograms.
McCain countered that under his rival's plan "Sen. Obama will
fine you" if parents fail to obtain coverage for their children
but had yet to say what the fine would be. "Perhaps we will find
that out tonight," he said.
Obama quickly followed up, saying that McCain "voted against
the expansion" of the children's health care program the
government runs.
The two men prefer dramatically different approaches to easing
the problem of millions of uninsured Americans. McCain favors a
$5,000 tax credit that he says would allow families to find and
afford health care on their own.
Obama wants to build on the current system, in which millions
receive coverage through the workplace, with government funding to
help uninsured families obtain coverage.
McCain's pledge to have the government help individual
homeowners avoid foreclosure went considerably beyond the $700
billion bailout that recently cleared Congress.
"I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy
up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the
new value of those homes at the diminished value of those homes and
let people be able to make those payments and stay in their
homes," he said.
"Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we
stabilize home values in America, we're never going to start
turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy, and we've
got to get some trust and confidence back to America."
McCain also said it was important to reform the giant benefit
programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
"My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same
benefit for present-day workers that present-day retirees have
today," he said, although he did not elaborate.