The presidential candidates focused on the economy [AFP]

The global economic crisis dominated the second debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, the US presidential candidates.

The rivals answered questions from the audience during a town hall-style debate at Belmont University in Nashville.

This is how some of Al Jazeera's guest analysts thought they performed.

"There is a lack of confidence in the solution we've got in the US, the money is on the table but no-one has a clue how the plan is going to work. We have got to find a way to work ourselves out of the toxic debt crisis.

"Asia has its own problems. Asia, by definition, is almost a risk environment, some of the Asian markets are high risk.

"Everyone in Asia went through this 11 years ago, from Thailand up to Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, even a knock-on effect on China, we all went over the waterfall with the Asian crisis in 1997.

"We know that the fix is not something you do in six months or 12 months, it's something that takes three to four years to work through. We are waiting for people across in the US to realise that is what lies ahead of them.

"In a sense the elephant in the room in that debate was 'would these two candidates acknowledge they may not have the money to back up the promises they are making'.

"On the Asia side we are waiting to see if there is going to be any reality about how they address this problem, that's important because the US is still a key market."

"Tonight's debate according to the snap polls was won by Obama. I'm not sure that it changed as many [undecided voters] minds as the first debate did.

"But I think what is happening is Obama's lead is beginning to harden into cement. Tonight, after Obama's win in the first debate and Joe Biden's win in the debate over Sarah Palin for the vice-presidency, John McCain needed a 'game changer'. He didn't get that.

"I thought [McCain] was better tonight than he was in the first debate. He was still not quite as pleasant as he can be in this debate; he clearly does not like Obama.

"But he was more specific and he actually had an economic stimulus proposal to buy up all the toxic mortgages which are part of the problem for the financial crisis, although only a smaller part of it.

"But Obama counterpunched very well during the "bomb-bomb-bomb Iran" exchange. I think Obama did well, but do not think it changed the trajectory of the race.

"The debate was as interesting for what did not happen as for what did happen. We didn't hear Sarah Palin's name, McCain used to talk about her all the time, and she has been in the media a great deal the last four days attacking Obama.

"Another name we did not hear at all tonight is Bill Ayers, who was a US radical terrorist during the Vietnam war, who tried to blow up some buildings. The McCain campaign is trying to make something out of a fairly tangential relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers into a big question about Obama's character.

"I think what is going on is that the crisis of the US finances which is now affecting credit markets blocking all kinds of economic activity in the US is so immense that bringing up such associations, tangential or otherwise, are not really getting much traction this time."

"I think overall that Barack Obama did a much stronger job in convincing the American people that he is ready to become the next president. This is a key thing for him to try to do over the next 30 days.

"There are a lot of questions over whether people feel comfortable with him, whether he is too much of a risk. I think he was very reassuring in his performance.

"I think that if you divide the debate into two sessions, one on the economy and one of foreign policy, I think that Obama was much stronger on the economy while John McCain certainly held his own on foreign policy.

"But even there [on foreign policy] I thought Obama was much stronger than he has been previously. Overall, I think it was a very good night for the Obama campaign. What [the Democrats] need to do over the next month is keep this trajectory. He is looking very strong, heading into the final days.

"The town-hall format is something that McCain has always excelled in, but this was not really a town hall; it was a group of people sitting in a room in a very staged environment where they asked very scripted questions.

"I do not think McCain looked very comfortable and I don't think he looked very connected to the people he was speaking to. There were a few exceptions to this he was asked a question by a military veteran and he obviously connected very well to him in a question over Israel being attacked by Iran.

"Overall, I think that what Obama was able to convey in that debate setting was a sense of reassurance and of fluidity, in being able to adapt to different situations, different questions and the different people he was talking to.

"That's important, because a big flaw for Obama has been that he cannot connect, that he is a bit cool and aloof. This [debate performance] helped to solve that problem for him.

"I think we are in a very negative, nasty, dirty couple of weeks, on both sides. What is really interesting to watch is that there does seem to be a divide growing within the McCain-Palin campaign.

"Clearly, Palin feels much more comfortable going on the attack and going negative. She was talking to a conservative commentator recently and she said that she thinks that Jeremiah Wright should be a legitimate issue for the Republicans to bring up over the next four weeks - Jeremiah Wright was Obama's very controversial former minister who created a real sense of racial tension during the Democratic primary.

"Palin wants McCain to use that as an issue in this campaign, but McCain seems uncomfortable with that. I also do not think he is comfortable about going after Obama on his associations with a radical domestic terrorist [from the Weathermen, a radical group active during the 1960s and 70s], which Palin has talked about for the past few days."