There was a time when I heard McCain's POW story and thought "Wow, that was a powerful experience in his life." I felt like it was an experience that helped McCain realize how great America truly is. I felt as if he learned from his experience.

However, it has been shown that he did not learn from the experience nor does he treasure it. He instead uses it as an excuse and that is shameful. He has sided with Bush on torture. I imagine someone who experienced it first hand would not do this.

McCain gets no empathy from me because he was a POW. Tonight when he takes stage it will be Barack Obama who will be the dominant presence. He looks strong, vibrant, and healthy while McCain looks short, irritated, and old.

As for all these reports that McCain is more comfortable in a town hall setting...I don't buy it. His town halls have always been monitored and the questions were hand picked. Sadly the fact that Brokaw is picking the questions gives McCain the advantage.

Thomas,I expect Obama to look calm, collected and reassuring. He may raise his voice in indigation when he talks about McCain's lack of understanding and lack of support for the middle class, but otherwise he will be the same as he has been in other debates, and that sameness is a good thing: he is steady and reliable in stressful situations. McCain will be overly made up again to attempt to disguise the skin cancer disfigurations, and again he will twitch and smirk, which was repellant the last time and will be so again. His tone of voice will be condescending again, since he clearly has so much trouble disguising his contempt for Obama. So aside from any points made in the actual debate, Obama will win on style, again. People tend to see what they expect to see, and voters already know to expect that Obama is calm and steady, and McCain is a hot headed loose cannon. So this debate, just like the last one, either will have little effect on the polls, or will just continue the current trends.

But I am never quite sure to what degree McCain’s P.O.W. injuries compensate by creating an empathy toward him. I’d be curious what Salon readers think about how the debate will play out visually.

Partly this depends on how much walking around there is. Presumably both candidates will be seated?

I suspect that to whatever extent McCain show physical weakness, it'll be a net drawback for him. It might have been otherwise, but he chose Sarah Palin for VP.

Also, I'm never quite sure how much this is my own bias, but I find McCain's body language really off-putting, especially his facial expressions and most especially his smiles. He comes across to me as very forced and unnatural.

Don't worry about Tom, his only real bias is for the presentation of objectivity. He has some personal issues (possibly) with Olberman and Mathews, but that has much more to do with old guard media vs. commentator media which is sweeping the nation.

What this means for democrats is that there will likely be no flag pin questions, and mostly opportunites for Obama and McCain to explain their ties to Ayers and Keating.

I think Tom picks who gets to ask questions, so unless the McCain camp has a bunch of sleeper agents they've snuck in, it will probably be a fair exchange which neither side will be able to control.

This will likely lead to another tie, which as we know favors Obama.

The real issue is going to be anger, McCain can't fly off the handle and be the unstable angry old man. Obama has to as always not be the angry black man, which he has gotten this far doing marvelously.

Righteous indignation is fine for either candidate it's just knowing where the line is and not crossing it.

I honestly think McCain lost it in his nonverbals in the last debate, and we'll see if being asked a question by an undecided voter who wasn't vetted by his people will push him over the edge.

So far, in similar situations Obama has done fine, remained calm and tried his best to "feel peoples pain".

Wow, Clinton really was the master of this artform.

"I’d be curious what Salon readers think about how the debate will play out visually."

Here is something from Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2201505/

"McCain's age and war injures, which make him look vulnerable, will put him at a disadvantage in the Nashville setting. McCain makes a step look like a lurch, a smile look like a grimace. Any attempt to ape Clinton by entering Obama's space for political effect will only make McCain look doddering. But if he simply stands there, the supple, feline Obama will upstage him with his vitality, even when standing still.

A robot just can't dance with a cat. "

Love that last line...

I wonder what the odds are for McCain pulling a Dennis Green circa 2006 (check YouTube if you don't know what I'm talking about)?

Always has been. The nature of his candidacy leaves little room for growth beyond 44%.

Cuddle up with Lieberman to get the Jewish vote, then select Palin and lose it.

Reject Bush to win over disgruntled Indies, then buddy up with W at the bailout photo-op and lose their support.

Play up to Latinos in NM, then lose them when he reverses course on immigration policy in front of right-wing whites in AL the next day.

He has no platform. That is his problem, he cannot get traction because he panders to everyone and gets caught. His word is worth zero, odd for a "straight talking maverick". In fact, I cannot believe his brand now is viewed as honest at all.

Same with tonight, he has to attack. Just has to. But we all know from debates, including the last one, that undecides like the 'nice' guy as long as he can keep it together. So, I look for him to play it nice, but use lots of 'code' words (mysterious, unknown, urban, Chicago) without "going there".

But ultimately I agree that McCain is always playing for the tie. And he will be tonight.

As for appearance I increasingly believe that the McCain as "honorable POW" figure is being replaced with a perception of McCain as "dishonest partisan sleazeball". I do not think he gets any sympathy, you are what you are.

Related to this - McCain was smeared in 2000 (and even in the GOP primary) as someone who was over-hyping or lying about his war hero status. These were GOP-directed whisper campaigns. These were awful and UNTRUE charges. BUT...we know they worked in 2000, because GOP voters elected an AWOL frat boy (GWB) over the War Hero. Did they just forget that McCain was in the Hanoi Hilton? Did they now know? Nope, these God-Duty-Country Republicans chose to ignore it. Because he had, for some reason, lost their trust.

So we've seen voters - even those most predisposed to buy into the war hero as leader concept - reject McCain's stature as a war hero before. Because they did not have faith in him. With McCain's negatives climbing, I think his only asset is now gone.