Barack Obama, 2nd Presidential Debate | featured news

Ah, the challenges of hearing President Obama call your dad liar. Makes you want to punch the guy, right? Tagg Romney, the eldest son of the GOP presidential nominee, joked on a North Carolina radio station that he wanted to jump out of his seat at Tuesday's debate and "take a swing" at Obama as the president repeatedly called out Mitt Romney.

The second, and more combative, presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney attracted an audience of more than 65.6 million people, according to Nielsen. Ratings were up nearly 4% for Tuesday night's debate at Hofstra University in New York, moderated by Candy Crowley, when compared with the second debate in 2008 between Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz).

Voters say that President Barack Obama performed better than Republican rival Mitt Romney by a substantial margin in their second debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. Forty-eight percent of registered voters gave the victory to Obama, while 33 percent say Romney prevailed in the Tuesday debate, the online poll found.

President Obama fights back in his second debate with Mitt Romney, banishing some of the doubts he raised in their first showdown... By the end of Tuesday's debate, it was obvious this highly competitive president very much wants a second term and, more, wants to win it decisively.

Here is a complete transcript of President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks at the second presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York on Oct. 16, 2012. Remarks from the two candidates were updated as the debate unfolded.

After a poor performance in the first presidential debate two weeks ago, President Barack Obama came back strong in the second one, winning perceived victories over Mitt Romney in two instant-reaction polls -- one of debate-watching registered voters, the other of debate-watchers who went into the debate uncommitted to either candidate.

The clash between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in a town hall-style meeting in Long Island could decide the outcome of the election. Even as I write this, it sounds over-dramatic, putting far too much weight on one event.

For candidates who want to prepare for every possible question that could be thrown at them, the format for Tuesday night's presidential debate is slightly terrifying: It is a town hall-style debate, which means that the questions come from uncommitted voters. When political reporters are posing the questions, the candidates usually have a good idea what to expect. But when members of the public get the chance to weigh in, the candidates can sometimes face curve balls that leave them flummoxed.

The Obama campaign appears to be taking nearly every opportunity ahead of the second presidential debate to tell Americans what to expect from President Obama, while the Romney camp has remained essentially mum – a sharp contrast to the days before the first debate when the parallel strategy was to lower expectations.