Barack Obama and John McCain held their second presidential debate on Tuesday night (Wednesday 4am to 6am in East Africa) against the backdrop of an increasingly bitter and personalised battle.

But when they came onto the podium at Belmont University, it was not so much the vicious and bitter personalized duel that was anticipated.

Instead both tried very hard to expound on policy issues ranging from healthcare, international trade, energy, security and international affairs.

Although they were civil enough to each other, it was also notable that each candidate in most cases responded to a questions by criticising his opponent's position rather than just explaining his own stand.

Mr McCain--who approached the debate with a promise that the "gloves are off" and series of hard-hitting attacks on Mr Obama--signaled his intentions to go out aggressively early on by ignoring the campaign rules and answering questions by getting of his chair to approach the audience .

It was not until late into the debate that Mr Obama also stood and moved forward, but he did not approach the audience as close as Mr McCain did.

Overall, Mr Obama seemed to have come out of debate more impressively, which might be a severe blow for Mr McCain. The Republican candidate has been progressively falling behind in the polls, especially in the so-called battleground states that are usually too close to call and traditionally provide the swing at every election depending on which way they go. The battleground states in this election are mostly in regions where Mr McCain should have the edge, but all the polls show him trailing. It was in the effort to close the gap that the Arizona senator announced the get tough strategy which primarily aims at going personal on his opponent and questioning his judgment, honesty, character, associations and leadership qualities.

Mr McCain has also been desperate to move the campaign away from issues--he is particularly vulnerable on his support for the discredited Bush administration thus bears part of the blame for the financial crisis--and focus on the individual.

The latest polls show that the strategy has not worked. Mr McCain failure to score a decisive win at the debate further diminishes his chances. Despite the gentle attacks Mr Obama amd Mr McCain launched on each other, the situation did not degenerate into insults, and it was ultimately the debate on issues that handed Mr Obama the edge.

Daily Nations' Macharia Gaitho was there, and presents his own summary of how the candidates faced key questions.

On economy; whether bailout package will help ordinary people:

McCAIN: Because of the greed and excess in Washington and Wall Street, Main Street was paying a very heavy price.

I left my campaign and suspended it to go back to Washington to make sure that there were additional protections for the taxpayer in the form of good oversight, in the form of taxpayers being the first to be paid back when our economy recovers - and it will recover - and a number of other measures.

But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis.

But you know, they're the ones that, with the encouragement of Sen Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back.

And you know, there were some of us that stood up two years ago and said we've got to enact legislation to fix this. We've got to stop this greed and excess.

Meanwhile, they were getting all kinds of money in campaign contributions. Sen Obama was the second highest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac money in history - in history.

Fannie and Freddie were the catalysts, the match that started this forest fire. There were some of us -- there were some of us that stood up against it. There were others who took a hike.

OBAMA: Let me tell you what's in the rescue package for you. Right now, the credit markets are frozen up and what that means, as a practical matter, is that small businesses and some large businesses just can't get loans.

If they can't get a loan, that means that they can't make payroll. If they can't make payroll, then they may end up having to shut their doors and lay people off.

So it could end up having an adverse effect on everybody, and that's why we had to take action. But we shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Now, I've got to correct a little bit of Sen. McCain's history. The biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system. Sen McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator. On the other hand, two years ago, I said that we've got a sub-prime lending crisis that has to be dealt with.

Now, with respect to Fannie Mae, what Senator McCain didn't mention is the fact that this bill that he talked about wasn't his own bill. He jumped on it a year after it had been introduced and it never got passed.

And I never promoted Fannie Mae. In fact, Senator McCain's campaign chairman's firm was a lobbyist on behalf of Fannie Mae, not me.

Health

Do you believe health care should be treated as a commodity?

OBAMA: This is one of the single most frequently asked issues that I get, is the issue of health care. It is breaking family budgets. I can't tell you how many people I meet who don't have health insurance.

We have a moral commitment as well as an economic imperative to do something about the health care crisis that so many families are facing. So here's what I would do. If you've got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor. We're going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to $2,500 a year.

If you don't have health insurance, you're going to be able to buy the same kind of insurance that Senator McCain and I enjoy as federal employees. Because there's a huge pool, we can drop the costs. And nobody will be excluded for pre-existing conditions, which is a huge problem.

Now, Senator McCain has a different kind of approach. He says that he's going to give you a $5,000 tax credit. What he doesn't tell you is that he is going to tax your employer-based health care benefits for the first time ever.

So what one hand giveth, the other hand taketh away. He would also strip away the ability of states to provide some of the regulations on insurance companies to make sure you're not excluded for pre-existing conditions or your mammograms are covered or your maternity is covered. And that is fundamentally the wrong way to go.

McCAIN: What is at stake here in this health care issue is the fundamental difference between myself and Senator Obama. As you notice, he starts talking about government. He starts saying, government will do this and government will do that, and then government will, and he'll impose mandates.

II want to give every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit. They can take it anywhere, across state lines. Why not? Don't we go across state lines when we purchase other things in America? Of course it's OK to go across state lines because in Arizona they may offer a better plan that suits you best than it does here in Tennessee.

Pakistan

Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there?

OBAMA: Part of the reason we have a difficult situation is because we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn't finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda.

So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there.

They are now raiding our troops in Afghanistan, destabilizing the situation. They're stronger now than at any time since 2001. And that's why I think it's so important for us to reverse course, because that's the central front on terrorism.

But I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can't coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he's making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants.

McCAIN: Teddy Roosevelt used to say walk softly -- talk softly, but carry a big stick. Senator Obama likes to talk loudly.

In fact, he said he wants to announce that he's going to attack Pakistan.

You know, if you are a country and you're trying to gain the support of another country, then you want to do everything you can that they would act in a cooperative fashion.

When you announce that you're going to launch an attack into another country, it's pretty obvious that you have the effect that it had in Pakistan: It turns public opinion against us.

OBAMA: Senator McCain is the 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."

This is the person who, after we had -- we hadn't even finished Afghanistan, where he said, "Next up, Baghdad."

Russia:

McCAIN: First of all I don't think that we're going to have another Cold War with Russia.

But have no doubt that Russia's behaviour is certainly outside the norms of behaviour that we would expect for nations which are very wealthy, as Russia has become, because of their petro dollars.

Now, long ago, I warned about Vladimir Putin. I said I looked into his eyes and saw three letters, a K, a G and a B. He has surrounded himself with former KGB apparatchiks. He has gradually repressed most of the liberties that we would expect for nations to observe, and he has exhibited most aggressive behaviour, obviously, in Georgia.

We have to make the Russians understand that there are penalties for these this kind of behaviour, this kind of naked aggression into Georgia, a tiny country and a tiny democracy.

OBAMA:The resurgence of Russia is one of the central issues that we're going to have to deal with in the next presidency. And for the most part I agree with Senator McCain on many of the steps that have to be taken.

But we can't just provide moral support. We've got to provide moral support to the Poles and Estonia and Latvia and all of the nations that were former Soviet satellites.

Iran

If Iran attacks Israel, would you be willing to commit U.S. troops in support and defense of Israel? Or would you wait on approval from the U.N. Security Council?

McCAIN: We obviously would not wait for the United Nations Security Council. I think the realities are that both Russia and China would probably pose significant obstacles.

And our challenge right now is the Iranians continue on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons, and it's a great threat. It's not just a threat -- threat to the state of Israel. It's a threat to the stability of the entire Middle East.

Now, Senator Obama without precondition wants to sit down and negotiate with them, without preconditions. That's what he stated, again, a matter of record.

I want to make sure that the Iranians are put enough -- that we put enough pressure on the Iranians by joining with our allies, imposing significant, tough sanctions to modify their behaviour. And I think we can do that.

OBAMA: We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. It would be a game-changer in the region. Not only would it threaten Israel, our strongest ally in the region and one of our strongest allies in the world, but it would also create a possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

And so it's unacceptable. And I will do everything that's required to prevent it.

And we will never take military options off the table. And it is important that we don't provide veto power to the United Nations or anyone else in acting in our interests.