“My friends.” McCain lobbed that phrase quite a bit in his responses during the second presidential debate this evening. In fact, he used it so frequently in some of his responses — often three times in a stretch — that a YouTube mashup video was up and running 50 minutes into the debate or town hall or whatever it should be called.

However, unlike in the first outing, he managed to make eye contact with Obama at least a handful of times and there were moments of the pre-campaign compassionate conservatism of McCain that emerged periodically throughout the debate, especially when he talked about Social Security, entitlement reform, and limitations on earmarks. Although, do we need another blue ribbon commission?

On the other hand, he occasionally paced aimlessly — looking quite old and tired, frankly — when Obama was responding. He also managed at least a couple of unpresidential moments: saying “that one” in reference to Obama’s vote on the 2005 energy bill and “Obama’s secret.” There was an occasional grating, patronizing tone not just in his use of the phrase “my friends” but also when he told a questioner: “I’ll bet you’d never even heard of [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac].”

In the town hall format, the kitchen table issues ruled for the first hour and foreign policy dictated the last third of the session. Not particularly enamored of Tom Brokaw’s performance, I was hoping for Lehrer’s top-notch work as moderator. As for entertainment value, it fell way short of the Palin-Biden outing. There were no questions about the characters or character assassinations that have echoed on the campaign trail during the last few days. And, on the whole, Obama was crisp, authoritative, and articulate. In particular on a question concerning sacrifice and service, Obama hit a grand slam, sending those CNN audience dials to the top.

In discussing 9/11 and the sense of national unity that followed, Obama praised what Bush did “at the outset,” but added that urging people to go out and shop after 9/11 “wasn’t the call of service the people were looking for.” Fixing his previously weak community organizing line, Obama talked tonight about doubling the Peace Corps and strengthening community groups “so that military families are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.”

The tone was important here because he avoided scolding or harsh-mongering language. In the coda of his response, he added his insistence that he, too, supports off-shore drilling, reveres military service and now wants others to share and carry the burden exclusively borne by the military. Very presidential.

Later in the debate, he scored key points for his presidential tone on foreign policy. He acknowledged graciously that “there are some things I don’t understand” and that played well on the CNN audience dials. Shaking off any and every uncertainty of previous Democratic nominees, Obama was clear: “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda.”

Pragmatic and wisely measured in his mix of moral concern and alliance building, Obama was decisive: “We may not always have national security at stake but we have moral issues at stake. If we could have intervened effectively in the holocaust who among us would not have said that we had the moral authority to step in? When genocide or ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.”

That being said, writing this before the snap polls starting rolling, I believe the decision is much clearer than in their first outing: Obama was effectively presidential here. If McCain was looking for tonight to stem the large-scale momentum shift toward Obama’s favor, it likely will not happen. No doubt, this debate was quite the snoozer. Only a true policy wonk could get this excited.

And for a couple of remaining highlights:

McCain’s inconsistency on economic policy remains. As he did in the first debate, McCain called for a spending freeze and, in almost the next breath, called for the government to buy up mortgages that homeowners can’t afford and renegotiate them at new, likely more favorable, values. Truth is that, in 2007, McCain failed to vote on passage of a bill that would overhaul the mortgage lending practices of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The bill would reduce the required minimum down payment for an FHA-insured loan and simplify its calculation, requiring a flat 1.5 percent of the appraised value of the home. [S. 2338, 12/14/07]” He even acknowledged that it would be “expensive.”

McCain also played a bit of odd timing — at least from how a PR observer sees it — on the question of who might be a worthy candidate for the next Treasury Secretary. McCain named Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, as a possible candidate. The problem is eBay announced today that it was paring 10 percent of its workforce. Timing, my friends, timing.

On a question about how the next president would prioritize three key issues — healthcare, energy, and entitlement reform — McCain chose the safe answer: let’s handle all three at once. The healthcare issue got quite a healthy exchange. McCain said, “If you are a small business person and you don’t insure your employees Sen. Obama will fine you, will fine you, that is remarkable.”

He continued about his plan to loosen state boundary restrictions, which seemed muddled and a tad irrelevant to those who might be looking for relief on matters involving catastrophic healthcare management. The audience dials on CNN played up when Obama spoke on the issue — familiar territory during the Democratic primaries when Hillary Clinton favored mandates and Obama didn’t. Tonight, he said, “small businesses may not even have a mandate” to provide coverage under his plan, adding that many “will have a tax credit to provide the coverage they need.” The only healthcare mandate in his proposal covers children.

That’s about it. Unfortunately, for McCain’s benefit, the town hall format was extremely dull. Clearly, McCain was frustrated just managing to get a few moments of negative biting in at some key places in the exchanges. For those watching CNN, the audience dials went dead whenever this occurred. Already, pundits are zeroing in on the “that one” moment I mentioned earlier.

Snap Polls Recap:

CBS:

Obama — 39%
McCain — 27%
Tie — 34%

Minds changed:

Obama — 15%
McCain — 14%
Unchanged — 71%

Economy Handle:

McCain — 41% (before); 49% (after)
Obama — 54% (before); 68% (after)

Understand your problems:

Obama — 60% (before); 80% (after)
McCain — 35% (before); 46% (after)

Prepared to be President:

Obama — 42% (before); 57% (after)
McCain — 80% (before); 84% (after)

CNN (MOE 4%):

Who did the best job?

Obama — 54% McCain — 30%

Favorables (Before and After):

Obama — 60%; 64%
McCain — 51%; 51%

Unfavorables (Before and After):

Obama — 38%; 34%
McCain — 46%; 46%