This week Dateline replays some of the highlights of the second US Presidential debate between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

With less than a month until the November 4 election, the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows Obama pulling ahead of his rival McCain.

The poll found 53 percent of likely voters back Obama for president, compared with 45 percent for McCain - who has borne the political brunt of the US financial crisis and been hurt by a rise in unfavorable views of his running mate Sarah Palin.

Catch all the highlights tonight, 8:30pm on SBS TV.

TRANSCRIPT

The latest debate between Barack Obama and John McCain wasn't exactly a knock-down, drag-out affair. They both looked more concerned about looking presidential than taking each other on. The financial crisis hasn't helped McCain and Obama is currently ahead by double digits in a number of polls. However, there are pundits that believe that Sarah Palin and John McCain can still find themselves in the White House, come January. In today’s so called Town Hall meeting in Nashville with pre-planned questions from the audience and online, it was a pretty sanitised affair, but most of the big issues did get a run. Here is a tasting plate, as it were, of today's exchange - a bit meatier than your almost subliminal news grab, followed by immediate reaction from the CNN election commentary team.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE:

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: I think everybody knows now, we're in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. I believe this is the final verdict of the failed policies of the last eight years.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: I have a plan to fix this problem. I would order the Secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loans in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes, the diminished values of those homes and let people make those payments and stay in their homes.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Senator McCain and I have some fundamental disagreements on the economy, starting with Senator McCain statement earlier that he thought that the fundamentals of the economy were sound. Part of the problem is that for many of you wages and incomes have flatlined - for many of you, it is getting harder and harder to save, harder and harder to retire. That's why, for example, on tax policy, what I want to do is provide a middle-class tax cut to 95% of working Americans - those who are working two jobs, people who are not spending enough time with their kids because they are struggling to make ends meet.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: So we are going to have to tell the American people that spending is going to have to be cut in America and I recommend a spending freeze that except for defence, Veterans Affairs and some other vital programs, we'll just have to have across the board freeze.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: We are spending $10 billion a month in Iraq at a time when the Iraqis have a $79 billion surplus. We need that $10 billion a month here in the United States to put people back to work, to do all of the wonderful things that Senator

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: Senator Obama was wrong about Iraq in the surge. He was wrong about Russia when they committed aggression against Georgia and in his short career he does not understand our national security challenges. We don't have time for on-the-job-training, my friend.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: It is true. There are some things I don't understand. I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 while Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Senator McCain's judgement. It was the wrong judgment.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world. My friends, we have gone to all four corners of the Earth and shed American blood in defence usually of someone else's freedom and our own. So we are peacemakers and we are peacekeepers, but the challenge is to know when the United States of America can beneficially affect the outcome of a crisis, when to go in and when not, when American military power is worth the expenditure of our most precious treasure.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: If we have Osama bin Laden in our sites and the Pakistani Government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden, we will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: I will get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I'll get him. I know how to get him. I'll get him, no matter what, and I know how to do it, but I'm not going to telegraph my punches, which is what Senator Obama did.

CNN ANALYSTS:

JAMES CARVILLE, CNN: I thought Obama won the debate. I think McCain had to win a debate and I don't think he did. I agree with David. When the polls come in we will probably see it was a must-win night for John McCain and I don't think that he did.

WILLIAM BENNETT, CNN: If they don't like each other, I wish they would show it a bit more. Make it a bit more interesting. I confess I so much admire John McCain, but I just don't the campaign is equal to the story. It is not equal to the man. The last comments he made I thought were impressive and quit moving, but he needed to breakthrough tonight and be consistent what I said upfront, he needed to breakthrough talking about the economy. I think he was a little better than last time. He didn't breakthrough enough and he is behind.

ANALYST: I learned tonight that McCain wants to buy everyone a house and Obama wants to give everyone free health care, which is remarkable for a country that is broke. I was very impressed by that. A status quo debate probably goes to the guy who is ahead and tonight both of the candidates painted the House the same colour it was. We won't notice a big difference.

PAUL BEGALA: Obama clearly had a strategy. Link McCain to Bush and make him the status quo and he did it again and again. He did it on the economy and the debt deficit and he did it on post 9/11 leadership and on foreign policy, again and again. McCain was very scatter-shot and at one time he seemed to get risky is when he effectively attacked Obama for being to belicose against Pakistan, but Obama was ready and he smacked him down by saying that he sang "bomb, bomb Iran".

ANALYST: I thought Obama did a better job by actually talking about how people live. He wasn't emotional about it, but at least he captured the essence of how they live. To go to Bill Bennett's point, which is absolutely right, McCain had what - it sounded like an interesting idea about buying the home mortgages, but it wasn't explained. We had no idea what is this all about? How does it work? It is his new idea which seems to be coming through, but where was the explanation so it was compelling? I didn't hear that.

ANALYST: I think people will come away disappointed. McCain had a new plan buying up bad loans and renegotiating mortgages. A bit of a discussion about the financial bsilout and the crises and the turmoil, but there was nothing big or new from either one that said, "Leader, trust me. Arms around us." I'm not being articulate about it. People don't know what they want, but they want to hear something from these guys that makes them feel more comfortable.

GEORGE NEGUS: On November 5th, the heartland of so-called democratic capitalism, in unprecedented crisis or not, which of those two do you want in the most powerful job on Earth?

Producer / Researcher
JANE WORTHINGTON

Editor
PETER TODD