Prez debates round 2: Who needs to do what

Tonight's the debate, and as usual, yours truly will give his take on how the debators did either tomorrow or the next day. Guaranteed to be fair and bias (to borrow a line from Fort Worth Star-Telegram sports columnist, Randy Galloway).

Here's what I think each candidate needs to do:

Barack Obama
Just like in the Democratic primary, Obama seems to have trouble putting away an opponent. Tonight that's what he needs to do. In the most recent, post-veep debate polls, McCain has had a slight uptick. Tonight's the night to nip that sucker in the bud before it becomes a bigger uptick. Obama needs to do what he didn't do in the primaries - namely, finish what he started. The last thing he needs to do is let the campaign linger on and on and on when a good finishing move could take care of it. If he wants to demonstrate his leadership skills, now's the time to do it. Oh, and stop agreeing with John so much.

John McCain
McCain needs to take what little uptick Palin gave him and run with it. Now's the time to shore up what had been missing in recent weeks and create the kind of momentum that could carry him all the way to the Oval Office. Even though it seems to still be a toss-up, I still think that it's Obama's game to lose. Whatever "game-changer" mojo McCain got out of Palin seems to be expired, and he needs to re-energize his campaign. Allegedly, town hall formats such as tonight's debate are supposed to be McCain's strength - so tonight's the night to show why. The economy was also supposed to be his edge against Obama, but that didn't quite work out as planned in the first debate. If J-Mac goes 0-2 in the debates, then it's a good chance that it'll be 0-3 later.

That's my pre-game analysis. Tonight we'll see how right I am.