i care about 100% of the american people. when he said behind closed doors that 47% of the country consider themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about. he seemed to strike all the right notes, but this morning s question remains did he stop the swing state hemorrhaging from his first epic lackluster performance? one, you don t run over a female moderator. you just don t. secondly, you don t run over the president of the united states whether that president s a republican or whether that president is a democrat. in denver, mitt romney had a plan, a strategy, he executed. president obama didn t. in this debate president obama had a strategy. you could see all throughout the debate. president obama i thought strategically had a good debate. at the top of the hour we re also watching this. any minute the kickoff of a post-debate campaign event. paul ryan will be stumping in ohio with condoleezza rice. we ll go live in
to legalization. good morning, everyone. welcome to early start. nice to have you with us. it is 5:00 a.m. in the east. first, president obama and mitt romney ready for round two. in about 16 hours, candidates will take the stage at hofstra university at long island for the second of three presidential debates. this one, a town hall format moderated by candy crowley. and there is plenty at stake tonight for both president obama and mitt romney. exactly three weeks to go until election day. the race is this close i m holding up my hands showing not a very big space. romney leads by the slimmest of leads. we re joined by cnn s paul steinhouser. he s going to be in the debate tonight. you re right, it is this close. it is also this close in the battleground states. that s where there is so much at stake in the second debate. one thing i know for sure, miss prepared, miss confident, miss got a good presence about him. ann romney says her husband is ready for a remat
in just about 14 hours president obama, mitt romney, will square off in the second presidential debate. it s going to take place here. the debate hall on the campus of long island s hofstra university. going to be a town hall-style event, moderated by our very own candy crowley. candidates taking direct questions from a group of uncommitted voters. cnn s dan lothian is live for us at hofstra this morning. dan, good morning. good morning. and you talked about those uncommitted voters. about 80 of them will be in the audience, and from that group they ll be the ones asking the questions based on the coin toss governor mitt romney will get the first question. now, as you know, the president will be working very hard to try and recover from that first debate performance. he spent the last three days in williamsburg, virginia, preparing, prepping for this debate, surrounded by mostly the same team that he had going in to the first debate, with the exception of ben rose, one of h
led to the death of u.s. diplomats in benghazi. just like old time, h ross perot the third name in the headlines on a presidential debate day. he is choosing sides and making news in a key battleground state when he does t good morning from new york city 21 days until election day, a few miles away from the debate site at hofstra in long island, tuesday, october 16, 2012 this is the daily run down, ima chuck todd. get right to my first reads to of the morning. a decisive victory for either candidate tonight could create momentum tough for the other to stop before election day. for mitt romney, another debate win might mean he could break the president s stranglehold on states like ohio and wisconsin, making the foote 270 electoral vote a lot more realistic. for the president, a win could reset the race before the first debate when it looked like the president was becoming the heavy favorite a new pew poll shows a split on who has the upper hand. 41% expect the president w