John McCain faces an uphill battle in the race for the White House [GALLO/GETTY]

At an early point during the second US presidential debate, Tom Brokaw, the moderator, asked John McCain who he might pick for the important post of treasury secretary if he became president.

"Not you, Tom!" McCain said.

I guess that was supposed to be a joke.

But Brokaw looked flustered, as though he were suddenly transported back to recess time in the fifth grade, being passed over by the other kids choosing teams for a ball game.

In focus

In-depth coverage of the US presidential election

Time and again, instead of looking presidential, he came off as "Senator McNasty goes to Nashville".

In the pre-game hype, many media commentators talked about how McCain excelled in the relaxed format, during which candidates can roam around the stage and engage with voters.

I guess McCain is good at town meetings when he's the only one on stage.

But this time he had to share it with someone who is ahead in the polls, and with less than a month to go before election day.

Angry? As Sarah Palin might say: "You betcha!".

Prowling the stage

The irascible Arizonan seemed to show his contempt for Barack Obama at every opportunity.

McCain, prowling the stage with his microphone, gestured toward Obama.

"You know who voted for it?" McCain demanded, with an unpleasant smile.  "You might never know. That one!"

Just hours after the debate, enterprising political paraphernalia-makers started offering a new line of t-shirts, car bumper stickers and buttons with messages including:  "I'm Voting For That One", "Joe Six-Pack for That One" and "That One/Biden '08".

Obama played it cool for the most part, but he aimed some pretty sharp jabs at McCain too.

He brought up McCain's old "bomb, bomb Iran" bit, which has become pretty tired by now, and repeated for the thousandth time his line that "the wheels have come off McCain's Straight-Talk Express".

And Obama's answer to the question about the next US treasury secretary was astonishing.

He said he might pick Warren Buffet, an Obama supporter who is the world's richest man.

The wealthiest person on Earth in charge of the US economy?

I don't think that's who the struggling middle class has got in mind just now.

Exaggerated distress

And by the way, if I may digress: the extent of the economic distress in the United States is being wildly exaggerated in the mainstream media.

Many Haitians may be sceptical about US economic woes [AFP]

Yes, the stock market has fallen and, yes, a lot of people have lost jobs and homes, forcing them to make painful personal sacrifices.

But to hear the media describe it, you'd think thousands of Americans were starving to death in the streets.

This isn't Haiti, Somalia or Myanmar, folks.

For many people in the US, the economic crisis means they will be somewhat less well-off than before.

Yes, there is poverty in this country. But like everything else, poverty is a relative term. 

An awful lot of people in truly poor countries would be mystified by what we consider to be "economic woe".

Risky behaviour

But back to the debate.

McCain didn't stop at attacking Obama.

When a young African-American man asked about solutions to the financial crisis, McCain talked about Obama's supposed support for two government-back mortgage underwriting institutions, known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"Really, the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," McCain explained.

"I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis," he said, disparagingly.

McCain also seems to have a pretty low opinion of the intelligence of the American people.

Why else would he have chosen the blatantly unqualified Palin to be the next-in-line to the Oval Office if he wins?

He thought her spunky-gal, moose-gutting, Jesus-praising, hockey-mom personality would be just the thing to appeal to the rubes and rustics out there in the Heartland.

Such contempt.

Such risky behaviour.

Does the 72-year-old McCain think he is immortal?

Perhaps he should remember William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the US He died at age 68 - exactly one month after taking office.

'Kill him!'

And what, except the most cynical of attitudes about American voters' intellects, would make McCain think that sending Palin out to accuse Obama of "palling around with terrorists" would make voters forget all about the economic crisis devouring their retirement savings accounts?

At a Palin rally in Florida, television pictures recorded men in the crowd screaming "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" as she launched into her attack on Obama.

Other rally attendees shouted racial epithets at a black media camera-crew technician covering the event.

Ugly, ugly stuff. The kind of thing that gives politics an even worse name.

But there are plenty of nasty things going on that aren't caught on camera. Phone calls and chain emails saying; Obama is Muslim, a radical who wants to overthrow the government, not really an American, etc.

There was a politician a while ago who disdained low personal attacks and smears; who said there was "a special place in hell" for operatives who spread personal lies in campaigns.

That was the guy who said: "I'm not going to take the low road to the highest office in the land. I want the presidency in the best way, not the worst way."

That was John McCain, back in 2000, after whispering campaigns and lies impugning his character cost him the Republican nomination.

It's too bad we don't have that McCain running in 2008.

But we haven't.

We've got This One.