Heading into tonight's second presidential debate, expectations were for a feisty exchange between the candidates with lots of fireworks, mud-slinging, charges and counter charges. But instead what was delivered was a pretty staid and boring debate that mostly covered ground already gone over in the first debate. The format was a town hall style debate in which undecided voters were supposed to pose questions to the candidates. But moderator Tom Brokaw did his best to get in the way of the voters by reinterpreting and in some cases outright redirecting the question to policy areas he wanted discussed. The result was that the candidates wound up spending much of the night reciting portions of their stump speeches, offering very little new information to the public.

The issues covered ranged from the financial markets to home mortgages, spending, and taxes on the domestic side; and Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, and humanitarian interventions on the foreign policy side. On both broad categories, the pattern established in the first debate held. Obama was more comfortable answering the economic questions that dominated the first hour, and McCain was better on the foreign policy questions in the last half-hour. There was relatively little that was memorable. McCain proposed a heretofore unheard of plan that the federal government would buy up distressed mortgages and renegotiate the terms to, "help stabilize home values." Obama proposed nothing new but repeated his campaign promise to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. On foreign policy, Obama mostly followed McCain's lead on Russia and Iran, and called for an orderly drawdown of troops in Iraq. McCain said that Obama will not admit that the surge in Iraq worked and that a similar strategy is needed in Afghanistan.

Neither candidate made any major mistakes, or scored any major blows against the other. And at this stage in the election, that favors the front-runner. Sen. Obama has opened up a small but steady lead on McCain in the national polls, largely as a result of Americans' anxiety over the economy. Tonight's debate will not change that. Obama had the lower standard coming into this debate. He only needed to appear reasonably presidential and connect with the audience in a real way. He was able to do that. McCain needed to do something to fundamentally change the dynamic of the race. While he tried that early in the evening, by bringing up Obama's ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the originators of the financial crisis, he dropped the line soon after and never returned to it.

The most interesting moment of the night may have been the last question. Brokaw relayed from an Internet questioner in New Hampshire the following, "What is it that you don't know, and how will you learn about it as president." Obama went first, and he ducked the question, choosing to tell the audience what he did know and turning the answer into a closing statement. McCain answered that he did not know what the rest of America did not know, the nature of the challenges that will face the country in the years ahead. He used the opportunity to argue that a steady, experienced hand is needed at the controls in an uncertain and dangerous world. It was McCain's best answer of the night. His campaign has to now hope that enough viewers were still watching to be affected by it.

I just gotta be honest and say that for the most part I thought this was an absolute snoozer. I wouldn't be surprised if this debate gets half the ratings of the first debate. Part of the problem is that I know this is all targeted at undecided voters and so both candidates are pitching their arguments away from the political junkies and ideologues that hang around most of the political sites and message boards. This also means a lot of platitudes and not much red meat.

But I did hang around on the TV to see that most of the focus groups seemed to split on who they thought won with a slight edge to Obama. No game changers from this debate, but that was unlikely in the first place. McCain will not come back with a brilliant debate outing. That's just not in the cards. It usually doesn't happen anyway and Obama is definitely slick enough not to be outflanked in a debate situation.

Now if McCain makes it back in contention, and he doesn't actually have that far to go in battleground states, it will be a tough yard by yard slog for the next ninety days. Dick Morris says, and I agree, that he did severe damage to himself by aligning himself with congress, Bush and the bailout. He should have voted against it, or at the very least do what Obama did, which is vote for it, but barely leave any fingerprints.

What I saw tonight was a whole bunch of the usual pandering and handholding from both sides. An occasional barb, Obama attacking McCain for voting for the big Bush budgets. McCain finally connecting Obama to Fannie/Freddie.

The only goof I saw was Obama explaining why we can't have insurance companies across state lines because they would just set up shop in the state with the least restrictions... like Delaware. Ha! Wonder what Joe Biden thought of that.

My suggestion: Both Obama and McCain should tag in Sarah and Joe for the next debate. For the audience's sake.

Click through for a running commentary on tonight's showdown. And please weigh in with your own opinions!

Tonight's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain at Belmont University in Nashville, TN will be in a highly structured town hall-type style with the pre-screened questions coming completely from undecided, but likely, voters rather than a moderator.

There will be a moderator, NBC's Tom Brokaw, who has the final authority on the questions selected. from a field of 100-150 pre-submitted questions from the audience and a few more submitted from the internet. The Gallup Organization has the responsibility to make sure that the questions come from a representational mix of the population.

There will be chairs and the debaters will be allowed to take notes, but not bring any. A new twist with this town hall debate is the inclusion of what some call the "Lazio Rule" (named after NY's Rick Lazio who got in HRC's face during a senatorial campaign debate). McCain and Obama will not be allowed to stray from their designated areas lest they violate the other's space.

The questioners will ask their questions and then the mike goes off. No follow-ups allowed by the questioner or the moderator - but Politico's Ben Smith says, "...Brokaw wasn't a party to the deal, I'm told, and hasn't agreed to it, so the campaigns are expecting follow-up questions, a senior campaign official said."

This style is said to be John McCain's strong suit. For his sake, he'd better hope so. He needs to stop the bleeding in the polls. With 28 days to go and only one more debate after this one, he doesn't have too many more opportunities to sell himself to the American people - many of whom are only now waking up to the fact that there's an election happening soon.

The debate will air on most news channels at 9:00 eastern time and will run 90 minutes. Stop back for our live coverage.

The drip, drip, drip of information about the exact nature of the relationship between Sen. Barack Obama and former domestic terrorist and 60's radical William Ayers continued today as the Obama campaign admitted for the first time that Sen. Obama did know of Ayers' history as the head of the notorious Weather Underground. That line directly contradicts what the campaign said yesterday, that Sen. Obama did not know who Ayers was when he worked closely with him on the boards of two separate organizations in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Worse for the campaign, the admission essentially confirms Gov. Sarah Palin's claim from this past weekend that Obama, "pals around with terrorists."

Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod told the Chicago Tribune that Obama learned of Ayers' role as leader of the Weather Underground, which declared war on the United States and carried out a string of bombings at targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and New York City Police Headquarters, "sometime after," a 1995 fundraiser that Ayers held for Obama at his Chicago home.

"It was sometime after their first meetings, you know, he became aware of that. I don't know the exact moment.

I mean the fact is, like a lot of people who, you know, didn't live through that era, particularly who didn't live through that era in Chicago, it just wasn't, I mean, when [Obama] came to Chicago, Ayers was advising Mayor Daley on school reform issues and that was his profile was that he was an expert on education issues.

My understanding was that he, when he went there [to Ayers' home], he did not know, so I would say after. No one is suggesting that he never knew. I mean that's not, we weren't offering that."

But that is exactly what the Obama campaign was offering, just yesterday.

There are still more details of the Obama-Ayers relationship that the Obama campaign has not owned up to. The campaign will not confirm the exact nature of the working relationship between the two men at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an education funding initiative started by Ayers and headed by Obama as Ayers' his hand-picked chairman. The projects that the Annenberg Challenge funded were administered by a separate group known as The Collaborative, which had Ayers as its chairman. Obama would have to have been familiar with the Collaborative's projects in order to recommend them to the Annenberg Challenge board for funding. That belies a close working relationship. The two also served together on the board of the Woods Fund between 1999 and 2002. During that time, Ayers' now infamous September 11th, 2001, op-ed was published by the New York Times and he was photographed standing on an American flag for an article in Chicago Magazine.

Axelrod's admission that Obama learned of Ayers' terrorist activities "sometime after" the 1995 fund raiser makes it very likely that Obama knew Ayers was an unrepentant domestic terrorist when he sat with him on the boards of the Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund and chose to associate himself with Ayers anyway. The Obama campaign calls the furor over Ayers a smear and a "distraction." But so far, everything that the McCain campaign has claimed about Obama and Ayers has been confirmed by the Obama campaign itself. That hardly makes it a smear. It will be up to the voters to decide if it is a distraction.

The NRA has a new ad out attacking Barack Obama on gun control. The ad features a Latino sheriff warning against the evil Mexican criminals, complete with mugshots, pouring across our border. From Politico:

It's unclear how widely this spot will air, but it's supposed to go up on TV and radio today. The NRA claims that it will spend "8 figures" on broadcast advertising this cycle.

The ad also features some fast talking about Obama's record on gun issues. Here's the real deal.

The ad also refers to an Illinois state law, claiming Obama voted to allow the prosecution of people who use firearms for self-defense. The law in question, SB 2165, refers only to people using illegal firearms, and prosecutions of the violations of firearms ordinances.

It looks like the politics of fear are in full swing now, with an extra helping of racial demonization to go along with it.

Caleb Howe, Christina Cedeno, Tom Fitzsimmons, and I will be doing live debate commentary tonight on a special episode of Unusable Signal. Click Here to listen live at 9pm, or to hear the archive afterwards.

Charging John McCain with negative attacks designed to change topics, Barack Obama has a new :30 spot titled "The Subject." Pot meet kettle.

Following up on my earlier posts (here and here) on John McCain's new battleground state strategy, the three prizes that he thinks he must have for victory just keep getting more distant.

RCP now has the following numbers for McCain's firewall of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania:

McCain trails in Wisconsin by 6.7%. Last week, the average was 5%.

He's behind by 10.5% in Minnesota. Last week it was 5%.

And Obama has opened up an 11% point lead in Pennsylvania. Last week it was 7.9%

In each of these three contests, the trend is ominous for Team McCain.

More bad news for McCain: In 2008 Democratic registration is up 13% in Michigan, but down 1% for Republicans.

Tonight's debate is a crucial one for both candidates, especially for John McCain. Although Obama has pitfalls to avoid, McCain stands to suffer a knockout blow if he performs poorly. With Obama's lead growing steadily, McCain could find himself on the wrong end of a high double-digit deficit by week's end, frenetically dodging the insertion of the proverbial fork.

Prior to Saturday, this had already been a nasty campaign, and most observers lay the fetid, slimy wreath at McCain's feet. With Sarah Palin's reintroduction of discredited attacks on Obama's character, the issue of Team McCain's mudslinging will be the 800 pound Pit Bull/Barracuda/Lipstick-adorned Wild Boar in the room. Will Obama wrestle this beast?

Conventional wisdom (and actual wisdom), says that McCain should tread lightly, and try to engage his opponent more to erase the distaste many felt at his refusal to even look at Obama in the first one.

On the other hand, I think it is quite possible that McCain's cold-shoulder of Obama was a deliberate strategy, and not the soaking through of McCain's crankiness. The campaign's current narrative is that Obama isn't "one of us." To those convinced of this, McCain is not making himself look bad, he is shunning an anti-American villain.

Going easy on the slime tonight and winning a thrust-parry-thrust on policy might halt McCain's slide, but it's not going to gain him much. McCain may feel he can make those gains by raising Ayers and Wright at the debate.

On the flip side, holding off doesn't lose him anything, and he can continue the attacks right after the debate.

Obama faces a different choice. Whether McCain brings it up or not, people might be expecting Obama to fight back. As Mo Rocca astutely observed, sometimes it's OK to get mad, and people connect with that. As he also noted, this might play differently for a black candidate.

What would an Obama counter-attack look like? He could fire at McCain about the Keating Five, Palin's witch-hunting pastor, or her ties to a secessionist political party. He could even bring up the rape kits.

I don't think he will go this route. Rather than escalate the fight, I think Obama wants to end it and get back to talking about the economy. He would do well to challenge McCain to have some sense of shame. To attack the character of a fellow US senator, in such a cowardly and dishonest way, after promising not to do so, when the American people are struggling to put food on the table, gas in their cars, and roofs over their heads is not worthy of the office which we seek. Something like that.

Whatever he says, I want the exchange to end like this:

Obama: ...how dare you, sir? (long pause)

McCain: Well, my f...

Obama: How DARE you?

Since writing this story, a senior campaign adviser to Barack Obama tells The Political Machine to "be sure that he will be prepared to hit," and that, "We made a clear decision to hit back and hit hard. It means that not only will we do our best to get our candidate to win, but it also means that by not being Swiftboated, we are telling the American people that we will change politics by rejecting the old school of Rove and Atwater. The American people deserve better.

So, it sounds like Barack Obama is ready to bring the heat tonight. This should be very interesting, indeed.

Caleb Howe, Christina Cedeno, Tom Fitzsimmons, and I will be doing live debate commentary tonight on a special episode of Unusable Signal. Click Here to listen live at 9pm, or to hear the archive afterwards.