the president s 12-point lead vanished. paul ryan gave vote of confidence on the trail in lynchburg, virginia. they are saying the only way the president thinks he can win if he can convince you to dislike romney. so he can win by default. all he s got. you re not going to fall for it, are you? the debate is now three hours away and romney is having rotisserie chicken. his wife ann and kids in the audience. obama is having steak and potatoes. three hours to the debate. three weeks until the election. bret: carl, late this afternoon, abc jake tapper had a post apt something that biden said in the last debate, his role in the social security reform in 1983, to create a buzz this an. the statement that the vice president made in the debate he was in the room when tip o neil and the president of the united states, republican
between being aggressive and substantive without being over the top. i think it s difficult for president obama in this one respect. if he goes too far, if he comes out swinging like portman told you earlier, the one major advantage he still had, i would argue the one thing that is sustaining his candidacy, the likability advantage. washington post /abc poll last week had obama plus 30 likability. it s the one thing he has going for him anymore. if he is nasty, if he comes off as too aggressive and too tough, that is going to erode that position. he could then tank. bret: by the way, i want to say i can t picture senator rob portman impersonation. i don t have it. i don t have the president obama, rob portman president obama for the debate prep. it don t know how it goes. charles, final thought for debate? what a debate. one point a robot. the other a cold fish. for obama, the bar is low. he just has to string a few
side. governor romney won the coin toss. he will have the first question. question will have the second. the president won coin toss and will be introduced first. at-coin tossing going on. hofstra hosted a debate before, in 2008. but it wasn t a town hall style debate. it was q&a back and forth with bob schieffer between then senator obama and senator mccain. i want to take you to the spin room on the other side of the campus, so come on with me. bret: okay. this is the spin room. this is our home base here. look, there is neil cavuto. this is where special report will be. this is the place where allthe t
i think that would be a way again of doing this in a way that is more equitable. a lot less risky in terms of look, go back to 2008. you have don t want to put your money in stock market and watch the market crash 700 pounds in the day. bret: you re touting the market now as being a success. market has done great under barack obama. bret: thank you very much. secretary of state clinton as he mentioned takes responsibility for the libya disaster, the security ahead of it. fox all-stars buying that? we ll find out when we come back. is bret: tonight s format is town hall format. we have our own town hall of sorts. exclusive relationship with twitter. joining me now is adam with twitter. good to see you. tonight we have something on the screen throughout the debate. explain that. in the corner of the screen you will see tweets per minute how many people are talking about the debate right now. now as we stand here, few hours left to go, we see 1200
humor about his first debate. is that a good idea or not? i don t have any advice for president obama. all i know is you re an american. i was watching biden the other night and halfway through the debate he reminded me of the cleveland indian baseball hat i went over there and watched the baseball game. dana: we re going to hold him over an maybe he will stay for the week. thank you for watching. see you tomorrow. bret: welcome to hempstead, new york, campus of hofstra university. the site of the second presidential debate. 70 million people watched the first one. more than 50 million watched the vice presidential debate. in less than three hours america will be watching again. this is a town hall debate, uncommitted voters surrounding the two candidates will ask questions submitted earlier and selected by the moderator. good evening. i m bret baier. this is special report. new polls out show a shifting race.