A few thoughts on the debate:

1. My guess is "that one" will be the moment remembered from this one. Why? Because it can be used as shorthand for the overwhelming mood of the evening. There was deep tension between the two men. McCain appeared to hold Obama in low regard. Obama appeared to treat McCain like a disruptive student in his law school class. The teacher acknowledged the dissenter, explained why he was wrong, and moved on.

2. McCain is famous for his performance in town halls, but this was not a town hall, at least not one in the way that McCain likes. For one thing, no one laughed at McCain's bad jokes. And there was no give-and-take with the audience or the moderator. Furthermore, McCain's intent in this debate was the opposite of his intent in a New Hampshire church basement. In the classic McCain town hall, differences of opinion are expressed, and McCain works to build a conversation, so that everyone develops respect for him and each other, even if there is disagreement. In this debate, McCain was trying to convince voters and the audience that Obama was not worthy. So there was a stilted element to the affair. Finally, the key to the classic McCain town hall is that McCain is having fun. He did not appear to be having fun tonight. Obama, meanwhile, did not seem interested in having fun. He was there to make his case, and he did it clearly.

3. McCain was most effective when explaining his foreign policies, at the end of the debate. Obama was most effective at describing his domestic policies, at the beginning of the debate. In the same way that McCain sounds authentic when talking about his vote on Lebanon, Obama is in his comfort zone when describing how insurance companies will game state regulatory regimes.

4. Neither candidate has the courage to speak straight with the American people about our nation's fiscal problems. Asked about the financial crisis, McCain talked about energy independence, hitting the same talking points he used in July. Obama talked about the need to give tax cuts to the middle class, and expand spending programs, a proposal he put forward last year. Both men have proposed policies that will lead to an increase in the deficit, according to independent analysts, even without a dramatic economic downturn, which looks increasingly inevitable. Neither man has shown any clear intention to tell Americans to face head on the hard economic times that await us. This is politics. The candidates are playing it safe, not telling voters anything they don't want to hear. They choose to demagogue Wall Street instead. Let's just pray that after the election, the winner drops this politicking and becomes the bold, honest leader both men claim to be. The nation will need it.

5. Like the last meeting of these two men, this debate will be graded on a scale. As McCain likes to say, Life's not fair. The state of the race is such that this debate--like the campaign itself--has become a referendum on Obama. It's not clear how McCain can "win" without Obama making a mistake. A tie goes to the new guy.

6. Did you see that moment at the end, when Obama and McCain were working the room with their wives? Obama seemed to move towards McCain, as if he wanted to exchange a few words. McCain pointed to his wife, telling Obama to shake Cindy's hand. McCain then turned away. (UPDATE: Thanks to TPM, here is that moment on YouTube; Wolf Blitzer miss calls the tape. Though it was awkward on the second pass, they did shake hands earlier.)

With KT and company ably taking liveblogging duties off my hands, I'm free to concentrate on my first love: drinking. Which is always more fun when combined with politics. Or maybe it's the other way around. In any case, please, commenters: Drinking game buzz words, please!

Let me start you off. Take a drink when McCain says

• "Doesn't understand'

• "Unrepentant terrorist"

• "Get off my lawn"

• "Bear DNA"

• "Make them famous"

Chug if McCain manages to look Obama in the eye. Buy the bar a round if he looks Obama in the eye and then doesn't punch him in the throat!

Okay, your turn.

Successful campaigns must be able to adjust to circumstance, and over the course of this last year, Barack Obama has certainly made some shifts, abandoning his past commitment to public financing, for example, and his enthusiasm for joint town halls with John McCain. (And yes, those were both flip-flops.)

But the McCain campaign's pivots have been more extraordinary and on a grander scale. His campaign's current hardball strategy has come to exemplify the exact sort of tactics that he has long criticized. With just hours to go before the second presidential debate, let us pause to see how much has changed. The revolutions are dizzying:

---

I think that when people support you, it doesn't mean that you support everything they say. . . . I know that, for example, I've had endorsements of some people that I didn't share their views but they endorsed mine. And so I think we've got to be very careful about that part.
--John McCain, March 13, 2008, when asked about Obama's relationship to Jeremiah Wright.

One of Barack Obama's earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers. And according to The New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, “launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.” Now, our opponent's campaign is claiming for the first time that Barack Obama “wasn't aware of Ayers's radical background.” Barack recently remembered him as just a 'guy in my neighborhood.' Wait a minute. He didn't know that he had launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?
--Sarah Palin, October 7, 2008

---

It is critical, as we prepare to face off with whomever the Democrats select as their nominee, that we all follow John's lead and run a respectful campaign focused on the issues and values that are important to the American people. . . . Throughout his life John McCain has held himself to the highest standards and he will continue to run a respectful campaign based on the issues.
--McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis, March 11, 2008

This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.
--Rick Davis, September 2, 2008

---

Let me be very clear. I am not questioning [Obama's] patriotism. I am questioning his judgment.
--John McCain, August 20, 2008

I am just so fearful that [Obama] is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America, as the greatest source for good in this world. I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.
--Sarah Palin, October 6, 2008

---

I have always had absolute 100 percent truth, and that's been my life of putting my country first. And I'll match that record against anyone's, and I'm proud of it. And an assertion that I have ever done otherwise I take strong exception to.
--John McCain, October 1, 2008

Speaking in Albuquerque on Monday, Senator John McCain attacked Senator Barack Obama on several fronts that by now have become familiar. But many of his charges relating to the economic meltdown, taxation and health care contained inaccuracies or exaggerations of his own position or Mr. Obama’s.
--Larry Rohter, the New York Times, October 6, 2008

Yes, McCain needs a game-changer, but not the kind that we've been seeing out of a campaign that seems to have lost any sense of a strategy as it lurches toward the finish line, news cycle by news cycle. More and more national polls are giving Obama a lead that is outside the margin of error, and it is looking even worse in many of the battleground states. If those polls are right and the election were today, the result would be an electoral college blowout.

More to the point: Take a look at that jaw-dropping Gallup poll that shows more than 9 out of 10 Americans believe that the country is the wrong track. With the nation in that frame of mind, it's hard to believe that talking about Obama's associations with a figure from the 1960s is going to gain McCain much ground. Nor will talking about earmarks, or recycling his stump speech jokes about how the federal government is studying the DNA of bears. These items aren't even a rounding error in the huge federal budget, and sound even smaller in the wake of last week's $700-billion bailout package. And all this is even before most Americans have taken a look at the quarterly statements they will be receiving in coming days that show just how badly their 401(k)s and other investments have been hit.

"He needs to give a positive vision for the country--not small ball, not earmarks," says former Ronald Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein, who was one of the few GOP establishment figures to support McCain in his 2000 Republican primary bid. "This is a big election, about big ideas. He is talking about DNA of bears. It's time to be big and bold." But Duberstein adds, in an assessment that I'm hearing from other Republicans as well: "I don't know if the McCain campaign can do it."

Gallup today reports an astounding number: Only 9% of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country, by far the lowest such reading in the history of the poll, which has been asking this question since the late 1970s:

The previous low point for Gallup's measure of satisfaction had been 12%, recorded back in 1979, in the midst of rising prices and gas shortages when Jimmy Carter was president. Gallup has recorded a 14% satisfaction level at several points -- once in the senior Bush's administration in 1992, and several times earlier this year.

The reason for Americans' extraordinarily low level of satisfaction is straightforward: the economy. Asked in the weekend Gallup Poll to name the most important problem facing the country today, almost 7 in 10 Americans mentioned some aspect of the economy, far ahead of any other problem mentioned.

So please open your laptop and join Jim Poniewozik, Michael Grunwald and yours truly for the presidential debate tonight. To find us, just click this link.

Drinking game suggestions?

Now they tell us. Only days after the McCain campaign pulls up stakes in Michigan, the state party--sounding just a bit like the Black Knight out of that old Monty Python bit ("It's just a flesh wound!")--puts out this press release:

A new poll shows Senator John McCain trailing Senator Barack Obama by only 5 percentage points in Michigan, a trend that is consistent with previous presidential elections where the race tightened substantially during the month of October.

“These poll numbers underscore the competitive nature of Michigan and why we need to keep fighting,” said Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saulius “Saul” Anuzis. “The presidential race in Michigan always gets close in October. We saw this in 2000 and 2004, and we are seeing it now.”