“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great
nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we
stand for.”

— President Obama, commenting on the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya on September 12, 2012.

Mitt Romney insisted in last night’s debate Obama didn’t portray it as a terrorist attack.

First Read: “In fact, almost all of the exchanges drove this point home: These candidates really don’t like each other. The two men constantly interrupted each other; they circled each other like prizefighters in the boxing ring; and they also even got into each other’s faces. Overall, last night showed that both Obama and Romney are fighters, but they also demonstrated the worst stereotype of why so many people hate politics. It is also worth asking if a debate that featured two VERY alpha-male performances end up turning off swing voting women who would prefer a tad more comity in their politics and less cable-TV/talk radio style bravado. And where was the empathy? From the get-go, it was clear neither candidate knew how to connect with the questioners very well.”

Washington Post:
“At least some people closely watching the contest — those betting
money on the election’s outcome — did offer a kind of consensus view:
President Obama soundly beat expectations in his second contest against
Gov. Mitt Romney… The votes on well-known political betting site
Intrade.com reflected a jump in the president’s chances from 61.7
percent just before the debate to 64.1 percent shortly afterward.
Similar jumps could be seen in other markets, too. At the betting site
Betfair.com, the president’s chances jumped 2.7 percentage points over
that period, and on the Iowa Electronic Markets, run out of the
University of Iowa, his chances were up about 2.4 percentage points in
that timeframe.” 

A new Sienna poll in Connecticut finds Rep. Chris Murphy (D) leading Linda McMahon (R) for U.S. Senate by just two points, 46% to 44%.

Said pollster Don Levy: “Connecticut residents now have high negatives towards both McMahon and Murphy with over one in ten viewing both candidates unfavorably. Murphy is underperforming relative to the top of his ticket while McMahon has more support among most groups than does Romney. This one may be decided on who turns out and how the last minute deciders feel as they walk into the polls on November 6th.”

In the presidential race, President Obama leads Mitt Romney by 15 points, 53% to 38%.

Despite all the fireworks over taxes, oil and Libya, ABC News says the most buzz-worthy social media moment of last night’s presidential debate was Mitt Romney’s comment about “binders full of women.”

“The inadvertently funny comment came in response to a question about pay equity for women… Romney was explaining that as the governor of Massachusetts searching for qualified women to fill cabinet posts, women’s groups brought him ‘binders full of women’ who were good candidates.”

The phrase now has a hilarious Tumblr account, Facebook page and Twitter handle.

More seriously, David Bernstein reports Romney’s account of the “binders full of women” wasn’t even accurate.

The instant polls all found Obama won last night’s presidential debate: CBS News had Obama beating Romney 37% to 30%, CNN found Obama won 46% to 39%, and a Lake Research poll in the battleground states found Obama up 53% to 38%.

Nate Silver cautions: “The relationship between the quick-reaction polls and their eventual effect on the horse-race polls has historically been very modest, and has sometimes even run in the opposite direction of what the initial polls suggested.”

Here are some other reactions:

Andrew Sullivan: “To my mind, Obama dominated Romney tonight in every single way: in
substance, manner, style, and personal appeal. He came back like a
lethal, but restrained predator.”

Joshua Green: “I thought Mitt Romney’s second debate was nearly as bad as Barack Obama’s first debate.”

Alex Pareene: “Obama clearly prepared for his Libya response. Romney makes a dumb
mistake: Obama says he spoke in the Rose Garden after the attack and
called it an act of terror. Romney says “no you didn’t.” Obama says “get
the transcript.” Crowley says ‘he did.’ The audience applauds Crowley live fact-checking Romney. Like, twice. They applaud twice. Romney
stutters through the rest of his response, and it doesn’t matter what he
says: He just got fucking destroyed. By the audience, basically.”

Rick Klein: “Not until an exchange on Libya — close on the heels of a
petty-but-buzzy attack on pension size — did the president hit a stride
in tonight’s debate… The president took a subject that should have been a sore spot and
turned it around. He was having a decent debate to that point, but that
exchange — including his call for a fact-check on when he labeled
Benghazi a terrorist attack — made it something more than that, the
victory his campaign desperately needed.”

Greg Sargent: “This race will still be the dead heat tomorrow that it was yesterday,
but Obama made big strides towards turning things around tonight.”

Joe Klein: “Most political debates are like this. There aren’t very many clean wins
or losses. The candidates work on the audiences they’ve targeted-women
for Obama; small business for Romney-and few minds are changed. The
number of minds that are changeable at this point in this race is so
miniscule that I can’t guess which candidate did better at influencing
the truly undecided-which is why I can’t say who won.”

Mike Allen: “Last night was Governor Romney’s last, best chance, because the next
debate is foreign policy, where President Obama is strong. But at the
town-hall debate, Romney discovered one of the basic precepts of
military science: You only get one sneak attack! We now have a tight,
three-week race that either man could win, depending on events and the
subtle electoral ecology of Ohio and Virginia. But at least in obvious
rewards, Obama got a ton more out of last night than Romney did.”

If President Obama had done this well in the first debate, most would have already written off Mitt Romney. Obama won the debate decisively.

The president had a simple formula: Defend and explain his record while insisting that Romney wasn’t being truthful. He kept Romney on the defensive and came prepared with counter-punches to nearly every topic. It was devastatingly effective.

The memorandum of understanding setting the rules for the debate — and the town hall format itself — went out the window pretty quickly. The debate turned confrontational within the first 20 minutes which probably pleased partisans. Both sides saw fire in their candidate. But it’s more likely that undecided voters didn’t like the confrontation at all.

In particular, Romney doesn’t do testy well. He made a big mistake trying to roll over the moderator. He got away with it in the first debate but he looked mean tonight. His obsession with the rules also came off as petty.

Romney was most effective when pointing out what Obama promised and what actually happened over the last four years. He scored many points But he lost most of them by not knowing his facts on what President Obama said the morning after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. Obama acted like a president in the exchange while Romney was much less. It was Romney’s Gerald Ford moment.

Candy Crowley was an excellent moderator. She kept what could have been an unruly event on topic and very informative.

With just three weeks until Election Day, President Obama and Mitt Romney face off in their second presidential debate tonight.

The race appears to be very close. While the president has more paths to reach the necessary 270 electoral votes for re-election, the momentum has decidedly shifted to the challenger.

The action starts at 9 p.m. ET. You can watch it live on YouTube.

Leave your reactions in the comments or follow @politicalwire on Twitter.

Here are the latest polls from the battleground states, updated as needed:

Colorado: Romney 48%, Obama 47% (We Ask America)

Colorado: Obama 50%, Romney 45% (YouGov)

Florida: Obama 49%, Romney 47% (YouGov)

Iowa: Obama 49%, Romney 46% (We Ask America)

Iowa: Obama 50%, Romney 46% (YouGov)

Nevada: Obama 50%, Romney 45% (YouGov)

New Hampshire: Obama 47%, Romney 47% (Suffolk)

North Carolina: Romney 49%, Obama 48% (YouGov)

Ohio: Obama 50%, Romney 46% (YouGov)

Pennsylvania: Obama 50%, Romney 46% (Quinnipiac)

Pennsylvania: Obama 51%, Romney 45% (YouGov)

Virginia: Obama 46%, Romney 45% (YouGov)

James Carville and Stan Greenberg: “The campaign has reached a tipping point where we believe the president has to offer a bold narrative, policies and choice if he is to win re-election and get to a substantial enough victory that enables him to govern and face the great challenges ahead. The first debate really did disrupt the race and presents a painful real-time test of what happens when the president tries to convince people of progress and offer a very modest vision of future change Voters are not looking for continuity but changes that help the average Joe.”

Nate Silver: “If there is reason to suspect a rebound for Mr. Obama, it is probably based more on election fundamentals than the debates themselves. Mr. Obama’s approval ratings are just strong enough, and the economy has shown just enough resiliency, that he might be a narrow favorite on each basis. One function that debates can serve is to bring elections more into line with the fundamentals.”

“There is no evidence, incidentally, that the second presidential debate is any less important than the first one. On average, it has moved the polls by 2.3 percentage points in one direction or another — almost exactly the same as after the first debate, which moved them by 2.4 percentage points on average.”

Candy Crowley “reiterated that, like past town-hall debate moderators, she intends to do more than just hold the microphone at tonight’s debate in Hempstead, N.Y. — an intention that has caused concern for both campaigns,” Politico reports.

Specifically, she intends to facilitate follow-up discussion to questions, which “is in keeping with past town hall debates, but it would defy the expectations agreed to by both campaigns in the co-signed memorandum of understanding.”

The contract specifically says there will be no follow-up questions.

Mark Salter: “Romney doesn’t need to elevate his game. He just needs to be as assertive, gracious and unflappable as he was the last time — not an easy task but one we now know he’s capable of achieving. No matter how improved the president is tonight, he’s unlikely to reverse Romney’s momentum. I believe the last debate changed the race fundamentally. It’s now trending in Romney’s favor. If he can find that sweet spot again, he’ll further reduce the likability gap with his opponent, and I think he’ll be the favorite to be our next president.”

New York Times: “One question that grows with each dollar spent is whether voters are being swayed anymore, especially when many say the ads they see now are merely noise canceling out more noise.”

“Scholars who have looked at the impact of campaign ads have found that for races like those for House seats in which name recognition often makes all the difference, ads do matter. But for presidential candidates, the case is not as strong. And this record-breaking year, ironically enough, may provide the most convincing argument yet that all the advertising that money can buy ultimately has little impact.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is siding with Democrats in refusing to block early voting in the battleground state of Ohio, the AP reports.

SCOTUSblog: “The ruling was a significant victory for President Obama and for
Democrats, especially since they claimed that the shuttering of voting
offices on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before election day would be
likely to affect low income and minority voters — many of whom may be
expected to vote Democratic.”

Rick Hasen: “This is quite a run in the courts for those fighting Republican legislative cutbacks on voting rights, at least in 2012.  And in that respect I have been surprised.”