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Election 2012: Obama and Romney face-off in first debate tonight
“I do tell him to have fun and relax and just be himself, because the truth is, if he’s the Barack Obama the country has come to know and trust, he is going to do a great job,” she said.
Ann Romney said her husband always looks around to find her in the debate audience and keeps a paper in front of him that says “Dad” — to remind him to make his father proud.
As for her advice, Mrs. Romney told KMGH-TV in Denver that she tells her husband: “Sweetie, you had five boys. You learned to argue really well and make your points years ago. Just go do that.”
Wednesday’s format: The moderator, PBS newsman Jim Lehrer, will open each 15-minute segment with a question, and then Obama and Romney will have two minutes apiece to answer. After that, it’s up to Lehrer to keep the conversation going and to intervene if one candidate goes on too long.
Obama and Romney have a two-track mission with debate viewers: Motivate core supporters to turn out and vote, at a time when early voting already is under way in many states, and try to lock in some new supporters from among the small subset of viewers who haven’t settled on a candidate or whose support for one man or the other is squishy.
The viewers who matter most live in the contested battleground states that will determine which candidate gets to 270 electoral votes on November 6: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and, to a lesser extent, Wisconsin.
Recent national polls show the two candidates in a tight race among likely voters. But Obama has the advantage in many of the battlegrounds, including Colorado.
