NASHVILLE - Call it a town hall about nothing. After two days of sharply negative campaigning, the buildup heading into tonight's debate was that we would see a lively and spirited exchange between the two men. The gloves were coming off, we were told.

Ninety minutes later, both John McCain and Barack Obama departed the plush, red-carpeted stage at Belmont University having sleepwalked through one of the most boring, least informative, most poorly moderated debates in recent memory. It turns out the most spirited thing that happened all night was the handshake.

McCain set the tone early, responding to the first question about how he would help bailout the middle class by saying, "Now, I have got a plan to fix this problem and it has got to do with energy independence." Come again, Senator?

He then proceeded to announce - but not explain - a massive new federal program that to the best of my knowledge involves the government buying up bad mortgages and renegotiating them. I could be wrong, I was already starting to doze off at that point.

Senator Obama followed suit, telling America a few minutes later that one of the sacrifices he would ask us to make as President will be to "weatherize" our homes to conserve energy.

Both men repeatedly ran past their allotted time, caught up in spewing out a barrage of platitudes and talking points - a few of which actually pertained to the question at hand.

The questions themselves were not much better - whether they came from the handful of folks in the audience or from Brokaw himself - and combined with the tightly constrained format they failed to elicit much, if anything, of value.

The result was ninety minutes of nothingness that was two parts watching paint dry and one part root canal. By the way, McCain did call Obama a liberal, and Obama did say McCain once sang a song about bombing Iran.

What all of this means, of course, is that Obama won. At this stage of the campaign, ninety minutes of nothing is a victory for Obama. And if there's one thing we can say with a great deal of certainty about tonight, it's that what just took place isn't going to have any impact whatsoever on the race.

Obama walks away from tonight in the same position he walked into it: well ahead in the polls nationally and in the states that matter.