It looked like Oscars night. A big ocean of red carpet, and flashing lights on the cameras that told the celebrities when to stop congratulating themselves. Only this wasn’t the Oscars—it was Presidential Debate: The Sequel.

Or as America’s NBC television network laughably billed it, a ‘town hall-style meeting’.

In reality the event was just another rigidly-staged set piece, only with some of the questions being supplied by visibly trembling members of the public, who sat on bleachers surrounding the candidates. The moderator was Tom Brokaw—a swaggering Marlboro Man compared with the petrified-looking Gwen Ifill of last week’s Palin/Biden dust-up. Not that NBC’s veteran anchor seemed able to control the presidential nominees, who kept speaking for so long beyond their allotted times that you almost expected an orchestra to strike up in a pit somewhere, Academy Awards-style.

All in all, however, the evening was pretty short on Hollywood moments.

This was probably a good thing, because unlike last week’s Moose vs Hairpiece circus act, it revealed two likeable and capable candidates who engaged in what was for the most part an evenly-matched and remarkably schmaltz-free exchange of facts and ideas. On only one occasion, when John McCain referred to Barack Obama’s ‘cronies’ while standing only inches away, did the mood threaten to become acrimonious.

You could almost hear Mr Obama seethe.

The evening didn’t start particularly well for either candidate. For an awful moment it looked as though the format would involve one man sitting on a stool while the other stood up and answered a question—thus forcing tens of millions of Americans to witness the excruciating spectacle of a man under extreme pressure trying to look casual while he’s sitting on a stool.

Mr Obama did it with one leg up, which immediately put him a risk of one of the most underestimated hazards in televised politics: sock exposure. Never, ever—not even in an emergency—must a political candidate expose a sock. The sock, and the inevitable glimpse of bare leg that comes with it, is like political kryptonite, rendering all superpowers useless. Mr McCain, being the more experienced candidate, kept both legs together, although this somehow accentuated his crotch and made him look more awkward than usual: quite a feat for a man held together by Army-issue surgical screws.

Fortunately, the stools were quickly abandoned, leaving the candidates to pace simultaneously.

Not that either candidate looks good while on the move: Mr Obama’s gait is strangely limp (ducklike, almost) while Mr McCain increasingly resembles Oswald Cobblepot as he shuffles madly around the place, arms waggling robotically, while he does that breathless sniggery thing. Nevertheless, it was Mr McCain who seemed more relaxed at first. Indeed, Democrats have always struggled to get their head around the fact that in spite of his seven houses, the white admiral’s son has more of the common touch than his black opponent, whose single mother once collected food stamps.

But Mr Obama gained momentum, talking about Mr McCain’s tax cuts for the rich, and getting in one of his favourite pig metaphors, saying that “it’s hard to ask a teacher earning $30,000 a year to tighten her belt when others are living high on the hog”.

But Mr Obama’s natural tendency to engage in professorial chin-stroking almost got him into trouble on a couple of occasions.

Asked about foreign policy, he began to think aloud that perhaps America should have a more anticipatory foreign policy, and that perhaps the president should “see around corners” to identify future problems before they happen. For a surreal moment it seemed as though he was about to endorse pre-emptive strikes. Likewise, in mid-criticism of Mr McCain’s healthcare proposals, Senator Obama said that if insurance companies were allowed to sell their policies beyond state lines, they would all choose to set-up shop in the least regulated state, as all those evil Wall Street banks have done with Delaware. Then he abruptly shut up—presumably remembering that his own running mate, Joe Biden, is senior US senator from Delaware.

But not all the blows to Mr Obama were self-inflicted. After he declared loftily that he would prioritise energy policy over healthcare reform, his rival told the audience, “Frankly, I’m not going to tell a person without healthcare that he can wait”.

But it was Mr Obama who delivered perhaps the most effective jab. It came towards the end of the 90-minute session, after Senator McCain had attacked the Democratic Party nominee for advertising the fact that he would launch military raids in Pakistan.

“You know,” harrumphed Mr McCain, “My hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt used to say, ‘talk softly, but carry a big stick. Senator Obama likes to talk loudly.”

The Democrat quickly countered: “This is from the guy who once sang, ‘bomb, bomb, bomb Iran’.” For a second, Mr McCain looked mortified. Perhaps it was because Mr Obama got his facts wrong—Mr McCain actually sang, Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, a-Bomb-Bomb Iran (to the tune of the Beach Boys’ Barbara Ann)—but more likely it was because, at that moment, the old warhorse realised that even in his area of expertise, the junior Senator had matched him, pound for pound. And when you’re ahead in the polls—as Mr Obama now is in several key states—that’s enough to call the night a victory.

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