President Obama puts his hands to his ears as he receives a roaring welcome from children at the Daughter of Zion junior Academy (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
(AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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President Obama leaves West Palm Beach Airport enroute to Ohio for a campaign stop (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
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Next:
3:50: The President and VP Biden hold a rally at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio
10:10: President Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at Delray Beach, Florida
11:0: VP Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event on the campus of the University of Toledo, Ohio
3:50: The President and VP Biden hold a rally at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio
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NYT Editorial: Mitt Romney has nothing really coherent or substantive to say about domestic policy, but at least he can sound energetic and confident about it. On foreign policy, the subject of Monday night’s final presidential debate, he had little coherent to say and often sounded completely lost. That’s because he has no original ideas of substance on most world issues, including Syria, Iran and Afghanistan.
…. At his worst, Mr. Romney sounded like a beauty pageant contestant groping for an answer to the final question. “We want a peaceful planet,” he said. “We want people to be able to enjoy their lives and know they’re going to have a bright and prosperous future and not be at war.”
…. Mr. Romney’s problem is that he does not actually have any real ideas on foreign policy beyond what President Obama has already done, or plans to do…
…. Mr. Romney’s closing statement summed it all up. He said almost nothing about foreign policy. He moved back to his comfort zone: cheerfully delivered disinformation about domestic policy.
Steve Benen: The Blowout in Boca …. CBS polled undecided voters again last night, and found Obama winning this debate by 30 points.
…. I not only thought the president excelled last night, I think Romney very nearly embarrassed himself. After six years of campaigning for the nation’s highest office, asking voters to make him the leader of the free world, the former one-term governor conveyed an unnerving message to the nation in the year’s final debate: he neither knows nor cares about international affairs. As a New York Times editorial noted, Romney at times “sounded like a beauty pageant contestant groping for an answer to the final question.”
Greg Sargent: …. Tonight, America was introduced to Peacenik Mitt — and watched him take a pummeling….
Romney didn’t take many of the shots he was expected to take — while Obama landed a number of very hard blows on Romney early on. Obama got right to his core message: We got Bin Laden, and we’re ending Bush’s war … Oddly, Romney again and again supported Obama’s positions, at one point basically acknowledging that Obama had made it clear that the United States has Israel’s back.
…. Perhaps most important, Obama repeatedly connected his insistence on fiscal sanity on defense, and savings from drawing down the Bush wars, to the need to invest in nation building at home. In other words, Obama successfully connected tonight’s debate over foreign policy to his core domestic policy message about the imperative of investing in long term middle class security. I don’t know how much tonight will change the race, if at all, but my bet is polls in the days ahead will show stronger public preference for Obama’s overall vision.
LA Times: …. Monday’s presidential debate featured a forceful and articulate defense of Obama’s foreign policy. That was no surprise. What was surprising was that it came from Romney.
…. Once Romney intimated that he might keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan past NATO’s 2014 deadline. No more. Now he agrees with Obama that it is feasible to transfer combat responsibilities to the Afghans by that point. On Iran, Romney emphasized economic sanctions rather than the threat of a military attack, effectively endorsing Obama’s approach…..
… Romney dusted off his canard that the president had conducted an “apology tour” through the Middle East. To be clear: Obama has not apologized for American influence; every time Romney says otherwise, he reinforces the many reasons to distrust his honesty.
…. If Romney believes in a thoughtful and centrist foreign policy, which he hadn’t until Monday night, it would argue for his candidacy. But if that vision is attractive — and it is — why not stick with the president who is already pursuing it?
The Obama Diary 
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