How is McCain going to keep from looking at Obama tonight?

[Erin Elizabeth]

In a town hall format?

From the Washington Post http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/07/a_debate_about_mccain.html

What are his options? Even his running mate, offering encouragement from her perch, says it's time to take off the gloves and go after Obama. Through advertising and in campaign trail rhetoric, that's the direction McCain has charted. But the other piece of wisdom that must be rolling around in McCain's head is the warning that town hall audiences don't like confrontation, attacks or anything particularly nasty.

So calibrating his performance Tuesday becomes especially difficult. In the first debate, McCain wouldn't even look at his younger rival. That's not really possible when the two will be less tethered to specific spots on the stage at Belmont. Can he be engaging and still engage?

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The other challenge for McCain is finding ways to raise the questions he wants to raise about Obama during a debate in which the all-enveloping economic crisis demands serious attention and discussion by the candidates. Obama mocked McCain's campaign advisers on Monday for suggesting they wanted to turn the page on the economic crisis and move to character issues.

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Only a few debates ever rise to the category of game-changers.