Video: President Obama criticizes Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s five-point plan to create jobs as the two candidates go head-to-head over the auto bailout.
At 9 p.m. tonight, The Washington Post will stream the presidential debate live on The Grid. The live video experience is complemented by the social conversation below – tweets, analysis and more context from Post reporters as the candidates answer questions from voters in the town-hall style debate.
The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson wrote that the debate could once again shake up the race, as the first presidential debate did:
President Obama nd Repubican nominee Mitt Romney defend their tax policies and how they will give relief to the middle class.
More from PostPolitics
THE FIX | Washington simply can't walk and chew gum.
FACT CHECKER | Rep. Michele Bachmann claims the IRS will have control of a vast database with the most intimate health-care secrets of Americans. Not so.
“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us,” the president said.
The stakes, as well as the level of uncertainty, surrounding their second encounter remained unusually high after a puzzling first debate performance by the president, a gifted speech maker who appeared flat-footed and defensive onstage with Romney nearly two weeks ago.
Since that evening in Denver, a race that had appeared to be Obama’s to lose has shifted in measurable ways toward Romney, as polls tighten nationally and in more than a half dozen states that will decide the election. Each candidate arrived in Hempstead, N.Y., about 25 miles east of New York City, with a different mission.
Obama, who has been preparing for several days in the relative seclusion of Williamsburg, Va., is looking to reassure an agitated Democratic base that he intends to defend his record and critique Romney’s policy proposals in a far more pointed way than he attempted to do in Denver.
…
“I feel fabulous,” Obama told reporters Tuesday morning before his departure from Williamsburg, a colonial-era town along the James River. “Look at this beautiful day.”
For Romney, another offensive-minded effort similar to his performance in Denver would help convince many of the voters who have given him a second look since then that his appeal is more than just the result of a bad night from the president.
Romney, who picked up deficit-hawk H. Ross Perot’s endorsement Tuesday, was sharp in the first debate. He unsettled the president, not least when he appeared to disavow his proposals for a broad tax cut should he win.
Obama said the former Massachusetts governor presented a false picture of his plans, but many swing voters in Ohio, Colorado, Florida and other key states have since moved Romney’s way.
Election 2012 blogger Rachel Weiner reported on the town hall debate’s format, which puts the voters Obama and Romney are trying to woo front and center, in contrast to the first debate:
There will be no opening (or closing) statements from President Obama and Mitt Romney; moderator Candy Crowley will introduce the candidates. Then town hall participants, undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization, will start asking questions. Romney gets the first question.
After each question, both candidates get two minutes to respond. Crowley will then ask a follow-up question. The candidates will have another two minutes total to discuss, but that time can be extended at Crowley’s discretion. The Presidential Debate Commission is hoping to get through 13 questions.
Both campaigns objected to Crowley’s intention to ask follow-up questions, having agreed themselves that she would not do so. But that agreement did not include Crowley or the commission.
The Post Most: PoliticsMost-viewed stories, videos and galleries int he past two hours
Loading...
Comments