Related CoverageThe 2008 Debates

Going into Tuesday night's presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., conventional wisdom held that the event's town-hall format would play to John McCain's strengths but that he would need a breakthrough performance against Barack Obama to shake up the dynamics of a race that polling suggests may be turning against him.

Throughout the course of the 90-minute debate, which lurched from the financial bailout to the war in Afghanistan to the threats posed by Russia and Iran, McCain often seemed more comfortable than Obama fielding questions from the audience of undecided voters. But after a night like the pair's first forum, with no major gaffes and few memorable lines, it seemed unlikely McCain would get the game-changer he would have liked.

As many had predicted, the debate's tone from the get-go matched the newly aggressive stance each campaign has turned to in the final month of the race. Fielding the first question from an audience member who asked about helping those in financial distress, Obama wasted no time pinning blame on "the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Senator McCain."

McCain fired back quickly, telling Obama, "it's good to be with you at a town hall meeting," a jab over the Democrat's late withdrawal from the series of town-hall debates that both candidates had considered this summer.

In some ways, the exchange set the template for the rest of the evening, with Obama seeking at every turn to pin McCain to the Bush administration and McCain taking his own shots whenever possible, accusing the Illinois senator of planning to raise taxes, supporting wasteful spending measures and being unprepared to lead on foreign affairs.

"Senator Obama was wrong about Iraq and the surge," McCain said at one point. "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 friends."

Obama didn't let the attack go unanswered, telling his opponent, "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-Qaida are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us."

But while he was quick to respond in that instance, Obama at other times appeared unfocused, giving answers that occasionally slipped off topic and off message. Taking a question about health care, Obama at one point appeared to be criticizing how credit card companies are regulated in Delaware, the state his running mate, Joe Biden, has represented for 25 years, before he quickly moved on. At another point, he appeared off his footing answering a question about the country's responsibility to intervene in cases of genocide.

McCain, in contrast, appeared more at ease, working the small meeting vigorously and attempting several times to inject some humor into the proceedings. But if he looked more at home in the town-hall setting, McCain also did little to hide his attitude toward his opponent, referring to Obama at one point as "that one" and suggesting the Democrat "would have brought our troops home in defeat" from Iraq: "I'll bring them home with victory and with honor, and that is a fundamental difference."

While the pugnacious tone was not unexpected, it remains to be seen how it will play with undecided voters like those in the audience at Belmont University. Town-hall style debates are usually thought of as poor forums for aggressive attacks, as the smaller scale and more intimate atmosphere can magnify the perception that a candidate is being too negative.

While each candidate took some hits, the most abused person on stage Tuesday night may have been the debate's moderator, Tom Brokaw, who pleaded repeatedly with both men to limit their answer to the agreed-upon time limits and who struggled throughout to keep the debate moving forward. As moderator, Brokaw was tasked with selecting which questioners to call on from the audience (attendees submitted their questions in advance) and, for the first time in a presidential debate, which questions to ask from those submitted over the Internet.

The evening concluded with one such question, from a woman in the battleground state of New Hampshire who asked, "What don't you know and how will you learn it?" Largely ignoring the question, both men segued as soon as possible into what sounded like prepared closing arguments that in both cases encapsulated the central arguments they had tried to make all night -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

"We need fundamental change," said Obama. "That's what's at stake in this election."

"When times are tough, we need a steady hand at the tiller, and the great honor of my life was to always put my country first," concluded McCain.