NASHVILLE - Republican presidential candidate John McCain pledged Tuesday night in campaign debate to require the federal government to renegotiate the mortgages of individual homeowners and make them more affordable, a sweeping proposal to help families in the grip of a financial crisis.

"It is my proposal. It's not Sen. Obama's proposal. It's not President Bush's proposal," McCain said in the opening minutes of a 90-minute debate precisely four weeks before Election Day.

McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, said the current economic crisis was the "final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years" that President Bush pursued and were "supported by Sen. McCain."

Obama said Bush, McCain and others had favored policies to deregulate the financial industry, wanting to "let markets run wild and prosperity would rain down on all of us. It didn't happen."

The two rivals debated on a stage at Belmont University in a race that has lately favored Obama, both in national polls and in surveys in pivotal battleground states.

The audience was selected by Gallup, the polling organization, and was split three ways among voters leaning toward McCain, those leaning toward Obama and those undecided.

Tom Brokaw of NBC, the moderator, screened their questions and also chose others that had been submitted online.

The two men also competed to demonstrate their qualifications as reformers at a time voters are clamoring for change.

McCain accused Obama of being the Senate's second-highest recipient of donations from individuals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two now-disgraced mortgage industry giants.

"There were some of us who stood up against this," McCain said. "There were others who took a hike."

Obama shot back that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, has a stake in a Washington lobbying firm that received thousands of dollars a month from Freddie Mac until recently.

Pivoting quickly to show his concern with members of the audience listening from a few feet away, he said, "You're not interested in politicians pointing fingers. You're interested in the impact on you."

Comments