Presidential Debate 2 - The Beginning of the End?

The 2nd of 3 Presidential debates is tonight at 9PM Eastern Time at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. It is on domestic affairs and is being called a Town Hall Meeting, although it is a lot more structured than that. All questions have already been submitted. There will be no follow-ups. The candidates will not be debating one another, rather answering the questions posed to them, although I am sure they will choose to respond to statements made by the other candidate.

Barack Obama is pretty much playing Prevent Defense at this point. As long as he doesn't make any huge mistakes, the debate is unlikely to change many minds. There is unlikely to be anything John McCain can say that would significantly help him, all he can do is say something that would irk Obama into making a mistake. Anything that McCain says in a derogatory fashion attempting to attack Obama's character is likely to be viewed as desperate and is unlikely to increase support for him. In fact, by seeming un-Presidential, it could reduce his support even further.

Polls just released today paint a picture for McCain's candidacy that is about as rosy as the short-term future of the Financial Sector.

Obama is now leading, comfortably in McCain must-have states Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Missouri. So-called battleground states of Colorado and New Hampshire are also comfortably in Obama's column. Unless McCain's campaign gets momentum moving on their side, it will no longer be a race to 270, but trying not to be held under 200 electoral votes.