As one of FrICTION's few undecided staff members, I was given the job of sitting through and assessing the dull second Presidential debate at Belmont University, Nashville. First impression: neither of the candidates is as good as Bill Clinton at this type of back and forth in front of a seated crowd. 

John McCain looked old and doddery, Barack Obama, while commanding the proceedings, seemed just a tad bored with his tetchy and impertinent opponent. It's not difficult to declare Obama the winner. He won it on detail, compassion, empathy, ability to explain, plus a broader appeal than McCain's narrow and rapidly fading maverick status. 

In fact, I no longer consider McCain a maverick. He's more a shoot first, think later kind of guy. John McCain is like a little kid hiding behind a bush with his new slingshot. He fires one shot, smashes a window; fires a second, hits a neighbor in the ear; fires a third, knocks a passer-by off her bicycle. McCain can't see what he's shooting at, he just thinks it's good to keep firing one dud idea after the other.

His first bolt from the blue, the dumbest idea since pogo sticks, was naming Sarah Palin as his running mate. Then, attempting to appear presidential, he suspended his campaign to sort out the mess on Wall Street, except his campaign wasn't really suspended and he did little to help Wall Street other than whine about greedy financiers, the sort of folks he normally loves. 

People in the know -- the folks on Wall Street and in university economics departments -- know that McCain doesn't know a credit default swap from a fly's boot. The economy is not his strong suit, which is why he always maneuvers the discussion onto national security: "My friends, I have led this, I have led that, I have led the other.". Someone in a senior military position needs to knock McCain off his perch. At the height of his navy career, John McCain -- yes, he's a hero -- was in charge of a few planes. He wasn't a general, an admiral, or anything senior. He was a captain for goodness sake. That in itself does not qualify you to lead a nation.

McCain really threw his toys out the stroller when he ordered his ranting surrogate Pitbull Palin, to discredit Obama with gossip as old as the hills. Look, Sen. McCain, if Hillary Clinton wasn't able to deliver a knockout blow to Obama in a year or so of campaigning, it's off-the-map improbable that Palin is going to be able to do any more than spit on Obama's shoes. Palin has the strategic brain of a pea. She just does what she's told, and she doesn't do it very well. And she's beginning to make evangelical Christians look like a bunch on idiots, a fact that hasn't gone unnoticed among the millions of evangelicals who aren't morons.

In the second Presidential debate, McCain was dull as ditchwater. The pace-up-and down format didn't help him at all. He looked stiff and tired and very old. He's about as ready to lead the country as my 94 year old grandmother. I can't see him lasting four tough years, can you?

Oh, here's an aside. McCain is beginning to sound like an old-school European socialist. During the debate he came up the the ludicrously daft idea of the government spending $300 billion on buying bad mortgages directly. I thought McCain was an enemy of that kind of stuff, massive government projects. Is the free market supposed to be better equipped to serve our needs than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington? Being a maverick, he can say whatever he wants, I guess.

His rants about pork barrel spending are getting boring, too. The world economy is in crisis and McCain thinks the solution is to stop building a couple of museums in Idaho and Rhode Island. It's like the guy who thought he was hero for rescuing the cookie jar when the church was burning down.

Obama didn't exactly set the world alight today but he did what he needed to do. He's the lead dog now and McCain is running out of steam and time. He doesn't seem to comprehend that his on-off negative tactics are about as helpful as a frog in a sandstorm. McCain is out of his league and out of his depth. Based on his performance in Nashville, I wouldn't trust him to lead me to the restroom.

 The debate pushed me closer to Obama. I wasn't pushed all the way, but I can't see McCain doing anything in the final few weeks to convince me to vote for him. It's end times for the two mavericks.