President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney face off in a town-hall meeting style debate tonight, starting at 8 pm central. I’ll update this post later, possibly after the replay on CNN. Meanwhile, any comments about tonight’s debate or the presidential campaign in general are welcome in this thread.

Iowa politics watchers may want to tune in to Iowa Public Television at 7 pm tonight for the first debate between Representative Dave Loebsack and John Archer, his GOP challenger in the second Congressional district. That event will wrap up just before the presidential town hall begins.

UPDATE: I caught fragments of the debate and will have to watch the whole replay later. Sounds like “binders full of women” will be the sound bite of the night; don’t wave good-bye to the gender gap just yet. I thought Obama handled the immigration question far better than Romney did too. Some clips and post-debate polls are after the jump.

Obama “zeroed in on undecided female voters” during the debate, portraying access to contraception covered by insurance as a “pocketbook issue for women and families all across the country.”

A question about energy policy led to one of the most heated exchanges. Obama reminded Romney that as governor of Massachusetts, he took pride in shutting down a coal plant that “kills.”

UPDATE: After watching the debate replay, I think Obama handled the question about gasoline prices well. During the summer of 2008, the average price of gasoline peaked at more than $4 per gallon in the U.S. It dropped sharply throughout the second half of 2008 as the economy tanked. Hat tip to Bradshaw for this helpful graph.

Arguing about the debate rules never looks good on television.

Moderator Candy Crowley stepped in to correct Romney when he claimed that it took the president 14 days to call the September 11 attack in Libya an “act of terror.” Here’s the transcript from Obama’s remarks on the morning of September 12.

The CBS quickie poll of about 500 undecided voters showed 37 percent thought Obama won, 30 percent thought Romney won, and 33 percent thought the debate was a tie. Before the debate, 71 percent of respondents thought Romney would do a better job hanling the economy, compared to 27 percent for Obama. After the debate, 65 percent of the same respondents said Romney would do better economy, compared to 34 percent of Obama. But 56 percent of respondents thought Obama would do more to help the middle class, compared to 43 percent for Romney.

Public Policy Polling’s survey of Colorado voters showed no statistically significant advantage for either Obama or Romney.

From CNN’s nationwide poll:

The CNN/ORC International survey indicates 46% of debate watches say Obama won the debate, while 39% say Romney fared better. The seven-point margin falls within the poll’s sampling error.

Meanwhile, 73% said Obama did better than expected, compared to 37% who said the same about Romney.

The CNN poll sample was a bit more Republican than the universe of voters nationwide.

The Boston Globe fact-checked a lot of statements quickly during the debate. “There were no women partners at Bain Capital during Romney’s tenure.”

LATER UPDATE: David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix writes that the “binder full of women” story is not true.

What actually happened was that in 2002 — prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration — a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I’ve checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I’ve just presented it is correct — and that Romney’s claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.

LATER UPDATE: More debate fact checks: Obama mischaracterized Romney’s comments about Arizona law being a model for the country.

Romney was completely wrong to claim that Obama began his presidency with an “apology tour” through the Middle East. I’m sure he’ll say it again during the third debate, which will focus on foreign policy.

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler tallied a bunch of false or misleading statements by both candidates.

Frank Luntz’s focus group for Fox News showed a win for Romney, but CNN’s focus group of undecided voters in Ohio gave a slight edge to Obama; 15 of the participants said neither candidate won the debate, 14 said Obama won, and just 6 said Romney won. Among that group, Obama picked up seven votes to five for Romney.

The CNN focus group didn’t like a lot of the negative comments both candidates made during the debate. Dials went down when Obama talked about the “47 percent” comment at the end of debate, and Romney’s comments about Libya were a low point for him. The focus group liked some of Romney’s remarks about tax policy, and his high point with them came when he talked about bringing tax rates down.

The full transcript of the second debate is here. I think Romney did best at moments like this:

For me, I look at what’s happened in the last four years and say this has been a disappointment. We can do better than this. We don’t have to settle for, how many months, 43 months with unemployment above 8 percent, 23 million Americans struggling to find a good job right now.

There are 3.5 million more women living in poverty today than

when the president took office.

We don’t have to live like this. We can get this economy going

again. My five-point plan does it. Energy independence for North

America in five years. Opening up more trade, particularly in Latin America. Cracking down on China when they cheat. Getting us to a balanced budget. Fixing our training programs for our workers. And finally, championing small business.

Romney returned to that theme during his closing statement:

I understand that I can get this country on track again. We don’t have to settle for what we’re going through. We don’t have to settle for gasoline at four bucks. We don’t have to settle for unemployment at a chronically high level. We don’t have to settle for 47 million people on food stamps. We don’t have to settle for 50 percent of kids coming out of college not able to get work. We don’t have to settle for 23 million people struggling to find a good job.

If I become president, I’ll get America working again. I will

get us on track to a balanced budget. The president hasn’t. I will.

I’ll make sure we can reform Medicare and Social Security to preserve them for coming – coming generations. The president said he would. He didn’t.

Romney struggled to answer a question from a woman who is disappointed in Obama but fears a return to George W. Bush’s policies. During his rebuttal time, the president managed to make Romney out to be more right-wing than Bush:

You know, there are some things where Governor Romney is different from George Bush. George Bush didn’t propose turning Medicare into a voucher. George Bush embraced comprehensive immigration reform. He didn’t call for self-deportation.

George Bush never suggested that we eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, so there are differences between Governor Romney and George Bush, but they’re not on economic policy. In some ways, he’s gone to a more extreme place when it comes to social policy. And I think that’s a mistake. That’s not how we’re going to move our economy forward.