Sen. John McCain has said he wants to shift the national dialogue away from the ongoing economics crisis and onto Sen. Barack Obama's character, and will likely use the stage of tonight's debate to do just that.
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The two men clashed over whether the U.S. military should make cross-border excursions into Pakistan to fight suspected militants, offering different perspectives on how the United States should flex its might and turning the issue into a question of leadership.
McCain accused Obama of pandering and emboldening American enemies by announcing he would use his military strikes in advance.
"I'm not going to telegraph my punches, which is what Sen. Obama did," said McCain, adding that follows the lead of his hero Teddy Roosevelt, who believed the United States should "talk softly but carry a big stick."
In that heated exchange, Obama accused McCain of hypocrisy.
"This is a guy who sang 'Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,' who called for the annihilation of North Korea -- that I don't think is an example of speaking softly."
McCain said Obama "was wrong about Iraq and 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."
Both men conceded that the nation's energy policy needed to be changed, but disagreed on how best to end American reliance on foreign oil.
"I've disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue. I've traveled all over the world to look at greenhouse gas emissions," said McCain. "What's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe and clean. I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, British and French do it. Obama opposes that."
Obama said McCain had voted 23 out of 26 times against alternative fuel bills presented to the Congress and said he supported nuclear power, in addition to solar, wind and thermal energy.
"This is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and it's absolutely critical we understand it's not a challenge, it's an opportunity," he said. "I've called for investments in solar, wind, thermal. I favor nuclear power as one component of our energy mix, but I think this is another example where we have to look at the record."
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