The final question in the John McCain-Barack Obama presidential elections second debate came via e-mail, and was introduced by moderator Tom Brokaw as having a “zen-like” quality: “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” After 90 minutes dominated by the two candidates going head-to-head on economic issues, the question might equally be asked of the US’s remaining undecided voters.

Brokaw opened the debate by noting that much had happened since Obama and McCain previously met in televised debate, but at times – perhaps inevitability – there were sequences that seemed like remakes of that debate, and a sense of deja vu from exchanges traded in the Biden-Palin debate.

Reportedly trailing in the polls, McCain held back from trowelling on questions about Obama’s past in the way that his campaign and he had done in the days that were the overture to the debate. Said to be at home in the town hall meeting format, McCain did lay the patriotism and jus’ folks touches on thick – it would be an interesting statistic to see just how often he subliminally invoked patriotic sentiment by using the words “America” and “Americans”, interspersed with the touch of repeatedly responding to questions by addressing the studio audience of 80 undecided voters as “my friends”.

Whatever warnings had been given to the two by their advisers ahead of the debate, some habits die hard. It may have been the camera shots, but McCain did not seem to spend much time looking at Obama, a repeat of his much-criticised behaviour in the first debate. In that first debate, Obama reportedly made Democrats groan by the number of times by prefacing responses by saying that he “agreed” with McCain about some things; this time around, Obama did it only twice – by my count – although the second time around was as a preface to saying why he did not agree with McCain.

The exchanges on domestic economic policy, on taxation, health care and entitlements followed predictable lines. Each accused the other, with the detail differing, of seeking to soak the middle classes through taxes. McCain tried hard to portray Obama as someone who during a short time in Washington, had never met a tax increase he did not like, and Obama responded in kind, although he sought to damn McCain precisely through McCain’s considerably longer spell in Washington.

McCain did better in short, concise sentences in his first answers on economic policies, but Obama had clearer detail to offer (but has had considerable practice repeating his message) about the numbers that would mean that an Obama presidency would go easier on all but the wealthiest income earners. He managed a clear soundbite: “I am cutting more than I am spending”, Obama said in reference to the massive increases in deficit and national debt run up in the Bush II years.

“You’re not interested in the politicians pointing fingers,” Obama told the audience at one point, although much time was taken up by McCain and Obama doing just that. McCain pushed hard his record of bipartisanship, and trotted out the maverick horse again, saying that unlike Obama, he had been ready to challenge his party’s leadership on differences of principle.

Obama’s line “the Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one” in reference to McCain’s plans for entitlements and to the name of the McCain campaign bus had an echo of something cooked up ahead of the debate and McCain – while candidates were not allowed to ask direct questions of each other – managed to ad-lib a line about how Obama had “failed” to say how much those who did not comply with the Obama health care plan would be fined. That may not add up much with Obama’s reasoned attack against the McCain health care plan and its real cost for households.

It took close to an hour before foreign policy was raised, and when it was, matters livened up.

In McCain’s view, “the fact is that America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world…we are peacemakers and we are peacekeepers”. His would be the cool hand on the tiller, he said, citing his policy positions of the past decades on Lebanon, Kosovo, Bosnia and the Gulf wars. Predictably, McCain sought again to portray Obama as a junior who lacked understanding of the issues.

That was a point when Obama “agreed” with McCain, noting precisely how McCain tried to portray him as lacking understanding. “I don’t understand…I don’t understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11”.

The Obama doctrine on US interventions on humanitarian issues elsewhere in the world would, it seemed, see the US working with allies (“mobilizing the international community and leading” – he did not have to spell out Bush’s shortcomings when he said that), allowing for the fact that America could not be “everywhere at the same time”.

McCain responded with an emotive assertion that the Obama plan for a withdrawal from Iraq would “have brought our troops home in defeat. I will bring them home in victory”.

Obama, however, made one of his clearest responses yet to the frequent charge by the McCain-Palin camp about Obama’s supposed readiness to negotiate unconditionally with hostile states. The purpose of such talks, Obama said, was to deliver the US standpoint in a “tough direct message”.

For all the uncommitted status of the audience, McCain had his moment for a shoulder pt and a handshake with a questioner in the audience who was a former US navy chief petty officer. All he knew he had learnt from a navy chief, McCain said, adding a “thanks for serving”. Obama, never in the armed forces, prefaced his subsequent response by telling the same questioner “we honour your service” but it sounded like catch-up. On the emotional stuff, even from in front of a cold television screen, one could sense a brief moment of rapport as Obama, speaking on the health care issue, recalled his mother dying of cancer and spending her last months in an argument with authorities over regulations for health care.

And that question: “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” (One suddenly seemed back in the days of Oliver North and Irangate – “what did the president know and when did he know it?”) saw Obama reply that being president meant that the biggest challenges would be not the ones that were expected but the ones that were not (a line reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s “no one is ever ready to be president” that so annoyed the Obama camp for its failure to endorse the candidate). Obama’s wrap-up was better: “Are we going to pass on the American Dream to the next generation” as he outlined how the dream had been tarnished in the past eight years.

By a toss of the coin, Obama had the first response in the debate and by McCain had the last word. Not quite the last word of his response was “What I don’t know is what the unexpected will be”.

A Zen enough response in a debate that held little of the unexpected.