Good evening, every­one. Tonight, as we all know, is pres­i­den­tial debate night. In less than an hour, Barack Oba­ma and Mitt Rom­ney will take the stage at Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty in Hemp­stead, New York for a town hall or town meet­ing style debate. The dis­cus­sion will be mod­er­at­ed by CNN’s Can­dy Crow­ley ; ques­tions will pri­mar­i­ly come from vot­ers select­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the event by Gallup.

We’ll be shar­ing our obser­va­tions and impres­sions here on The Advo­cate as the debate gets under­way; updates will be also simul­cast on our Twit­ter feed. We invite you to weigh in with your thoughts as well in the com­ments. Before the debate begins, here’s some analy­sis we think is worth reading:

• Can­dy Crow­ley is no Van­na White
• Best debate ever? Six rea­sons why tonight’s rematch is must-see TV
• Eight impor­tant eco­nom­ic ques­tions for the pres­i­den­tial debate that have noth­ing to do with tax­es or the deficit
• Oba­ma team rais­es expec­ta­tions for debate with Romney

Let us begin!

UPDATE, 5:44 PM: Fif­teen min­utes to go before the can­di­dates take the stage in New York. C‑SPAN is cur­rent­ly show­ing the pre-debate fes­tiv­i­ties; the mod­er­a­tor, Can­dy Crow­ley, is due to be intro­duced in a few minutes.

UPDATE, 6:04 PM: Rom­ney gets first stab at the first ques­tion. “We have to make sure it’s eas­i­er for kids to afford col­lege,” he says. How?

UPDATE, 6:05 PM: “I want to make sure we keep our Pell Grant pro­gram grow­ing…” By adopt­ing Ryan’s budget?

UPDATE, 6:06 PM: Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, answer­ing Jeremy’s ques­tion: “When Gov­er­nor Rom­ney said we should let Detroit go bank­rupt, I bet on Amer­i­can work­ers.” Nice!

UPDATE, 6:08 PM: Pres­i­dent Oba­ma: “We’ve worked hard to ensure stu­dent loans are avail­able for folks like you.” Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion made sure fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is lend­ing direct­ly to stu­dents instead of help­ing banks make money.

UPDATE, 6:08 PM: Crow­ley asks the can­di­dates: What can be done to help those who have been unem­ployed for a long time?

UPDATE, 6:09 PM: Rom­ney cites his mag­i­cal five point plan as evi­dence he deserves people’s votes.

UPDATE, 6:09 PM: Rom­ney turns to address Oba­ma: “You took Detroit bankrupt.”

UPDATE, 6:10 PM: Oba­ma: “What Gov­er­nor Rom­ney said just isn’t true… Don’t take my word for it.”

UPDATE, 6:11 PM: Oba­ma zings Rom­ney: There is no five point plan, just a one point plan to allow the wealthy to play by a dif­fer­ent set of rules than mid­dle and low income families.

UPDATE, 6:11 PM: Rom­ney tries to inter­rupt Crow­ley and fails. She’s no Lehrer…

UPDATE, 6:12 PM: Next ques­tion is about gas prices.

UPDATE, 6:13 PM: Oba­ma: “We’ve dou­bled clean ener­gy pro­duc­tion.” Also cites vic­to­ry on get­ting automak­ers to agree on high­er fuel effi­cien­cy stan­dards for vehicles.

UPDATE, 6:13 PM: Oba­ma: Romney’s plan is to let the oil com­pa­nies write ener­gy pol­i­cy. Like Dick Cheney and Dubya did.

UPDATE, 6:14 PM: Rom­ney claims oil pro­duc­tion is down on fed­er­al land. Why is that a bad thing?

UPDATE, 6:15 PM: Mitt Rom­ney just indi­cat­ed he couldn’t care less about pro­tect­ing endan­gered species.

UPDATE, 6:16 PM: Short­er Rom­ney: Let’s drill more wells and blow up more mountains!

UPDATE, 6:17 PM: Oba­ma zings Rom­ney again, reminds us that Rom­ney once stood in front of a coal plant in Mass­a­chu­setts and said coal kills. Nice!

UPDATE, 6:18 PM: Oba­ma inter­rupts Rom­ney: Not true, Gov­er­nor! They’re both stand­ing now, arguing.

UPDATE, 6:19 PM: Rom­ney not look­ing so hot…

UPDATE, 6:19 PM: A lit­tle mod­er­a­tion, Candy?

UPDATE, 6:21 PM: Thanks for that, Mitt Cheney… or should I say Dick Romney…

UPDATE, 6:21 PM: ZING! Oba­ma: It’s con­ceiv­able gas prices could go down, if Romney’s poli­cies cause the econ­o­my to go into freefall.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM: Oba­ma attacks Rom­ney for say­ing that wind-relat­ed jobs are “imag­i­nary”. He’s on a roll.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM: Mitt, stop act­ing like being a jerk.

UPDATE, 6:23 PM: Oba­ma: “Can­dy, I’m used to being interrupted.”

UPDATE, 6:24 PM: Rom­ney: “I want to sim­pli­fy the tax code.” How, Gov­er­nor? What’s your plan?

UPDATE, 6:25 PM: Over­heard on Twit­ter: Can­dy needs a gavel…

UPDATE, 6:27 PM: Rom­ney: “I will not, under any cir­cum­stances, reduce the share that’s being paid by high income tax­pay­ers.” Sor­ry, Gov­er­nor, we don’t believe you.

UPDATE, 6:27 PM: Oba­ma: “Four years ago, I said I would cut tax­es for mid­dle class fam­i­lies, and that’s what I’ve done.”

UPDATE, 6:28 PM: Oba­ma: “If we’re seri­ous about reduc­ing the deficit… we’ve got­ta make sure the wealthy do a lit­tle bit more [for our country].”

UPDATE, 6:29 PM: Oba­ma: “Gov­er­nor Rom­ney has a dif­fer­ent phi­los­o­phy… I fun­da­men­tal­ly dis­agree. I think what grows the econ­o­my is small busi­ness­es get­ting a tax cred­it for hir­ing veterans.”

UPDATE, 6:30 PM: Crow­ley, with the under­state­ment of the night, to Rom­ney: “Gov­er­nor, I’m sure you’ve got a reply there.”

UPDATE, 6:32 PM: Romney’s five-point plan is unrealistic.

UPDATE, 6:33 PM: Oba­ma is real­ly hit­ting Rom­ney hard right now. Romney’s just stand­ing there tak­ing it.

UPDATE, 6:33 PM: This is get­ting good!

UPDATE, 6:34 PM: Oba­ma: “The math doesn’t add up.”

UPDATE, 6:35 PM: Rom­ney, on his num­bers: “Of course they add up.” Oba­ma smiles…

UPDATE, 6:36 PM: Rom­ney claims: “I know what it takes to bal­ance bud­gets. I’ve done I all my life.”

UPDATE, 6:37 PM: Crow­ley: “I will get run out of town” [if I don’t take control].”

UPDATE, 6:37 PM: YES! Ques­tion about equal pay for equal work.

UPDATE, 6:38 PM: Oba­ma: “The first bill I signed was some­thing called Lily Ledbetter.”

UPDATE, 6:39 PM: Oba­ma tells Fen­ton, audi­ence that his admin­is­tra­tion has made Pell grants acces­si­ble to more youth. And indeed he has.

UPDATE, 6:40 PM: Rom­ney describes pay­check fair­ness as “impor­tant topic.”

UPDATE, 6:41 PM: Did Rom­ney just say binders full of women? That’s not going to replay well… hel­lo new Inter­net meme!

UPDATE, 6:41 PM: Mitt, your time is up.

UPDATE, 6:42 PM: If Mitt Rom­ney is such a good debater, why can’t he keep his answers with­in the time lim­its? He’s gone over by like thir­ty sec­onds again.

UPDATE, 6:44 PM: Oba­ma: “That’s not the advo­ca­cy women need… There are mil­lions of women across Amer­i­ca who rely on Planned Parenthood.”

UPDATE, 6:44 PM: Strong fin­ish by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma on that answer.

UPDATE, 6:45 PM: Next ques­tion for Rom­ney: “What is the biggest dif­fer­ence between you and George W. Bush?”

UPDATE, 6:46 PM: Rom­ney lame­ly tries to spin his oppo­si­tion to access to con­tra­cep­tives… what about his sup­port for the Blunt Amendment?

UPDATE, 6:48 PM: Mul­ti­mil­lion­aire and vul­ture cap­i­tal­ist Rom­ney claims he’ll be a cham­pi­on for the lit­tle guy: “Our par­ty has been focused on big busi­ness for too long.”

UPDATE, 6:49 PM: Oba­ma: “Gov­er­nor Rom­ney invest­ed in com­pa­nies that were pio­neers of out­sourc­ing jobs to China.”

UPDATE, 6:52 PM: Oba­ma cites some of the promis­es he’s kept. Occu­pa­tion of Iraq end­ed, Patient Pro­tec­tion Act enact­ed. Restraints on Wall Street put into place. Auto indus­try pulled back from the brink.

UPDATE, 6:53 PM: Oba­ma: “The com­mit­ments I’ve made, I’ve kept. The ones I haven’t… it’s not for a lack of trying.”

UPDATE, 6:54 PM: Oba­ma: The choice in this elec­tion is whose promis­es are going to help you.

UPDATE, 6:56 PM: Mitt, the rea­son more peo­ple are on food stamps is because of income equal­i­ty and a rise in pover­ty. Prob­lems great­ly exac­er­bat­ed as a result of George W. Bush’s policies.

UPDATE, 6:58 PM: Ques­tion about immi­gra­tion from Lorraine.

UPDATE, 6:58 PM: Rom­ney try­ing to human­ize himself…

UPDATE, 7:00 PM: Rom­ney try­ing to make it sound like he sup­ports the DREAM Act.

UPDATE, 7:01 PM: Oba­ma: “I’ve done every­thing I can on my own to fix the sys­tem.” Notes he hasn’t got­ten coop­er­a­tion from Congress.

UPDATE, 7:03 PM: Oba­ma notes that Rom­ney promised to veto the DREAM Act. Also points out Rom­ney praised Arizona’s dra­con­ian immi­gra­tion law.

UPDATE, 7:05 PM: Hey Mitt: Pres­i­dents *don’t* file legislation!

UPDATE, 7:05 PM: Mitt Rom­ney is real­ly stum­bling with this rebuttal.

UPDATE, 7:06 PM: Burst of crosstalk… Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is tired of Romney’s nonsense…

UPDATE, 7:07 PM: Oba­ma gets a dig in at Rom­ney on his pen­sion: “It’s not as big as yours.”

UPDATE, 7:08 PM: Next ques­tion is about Libya.

UPDATE, 7:10 PM: Oba­ma is explain­ing how he react­ed to the attack on America’s con­sulate in Benghazi.

UPDATE, 7:11 PM: Oba­ma: “I’m the one who has the greet the coffins when they come home.”

UPDATE, 7:16 PM: Oba­ma: “Please pro­ceed, Gov­er­nor.” The Pres­i­dent has had enough.

UPDATE, 7:16 PM: Big moment for Oba­ma. Rom­ney has real­ly tripped him­self up here. He just tried to claim the pres­i­dent did not char­ac­ter­ize the attack on the con­sulate in Libya as a ter­ror­ist attack ear­ly on, when in fact, in Oba­ma’s Rose Gar­den speech, he did. “Check the tran­script,” the Pres­i­dent told his oppo­nent. Mod­er­a­tor Can­dy Crow­ley backs Oba­ma up. Yay, real-time fact check­ing! Audi­ence mem­bers are clapping.

UPDATE, 7:17 PM: Can­dy mov­ing the debate along…

UPDATE, 7:17 PM: Nina Gon­za­lez: What has your admin­is­tra­tion done to lim­it the avail­abil­i­ty of assault weapons?

UPDATE, 7:19 PM: Oba­ma: We have to keep guns out of the hands of crim­i­nals and the men­tal­ly ill. More enforce­ment needed.

UPDATE, 7:20 PM: Oba­ma sug­gests we should rein­tro­duce a ban on assault weapons. The NRA is going to pick up on that, no doubt.

UPDATE, 7:20 PM: Short­er Rom­ney: Not inter­est­ed in get­ting semi­au­to­mat­ic weapons off our streets.

UPDATE, 7:21 PM: Rom­ney brings up “Fast and Furi­ous”. Knew that was coming…

UPDATE, 7:22 PM: Crow­ley asks why Rom­ney no longer sup­ports an assault weapons ban.

UPDATE, 7:24 PM: Oba­ma: Rom­ney changed his posi­tion on the val­ue of assault weapons ban because he want­ed the NRA’s endorse­ment. Zing!

UPDATE, 7:26 PM: Car­ol Gold­berg asks Mitt Rom­ney, an out­sourc­ing pio­neer, about insourc­ing… bring­ing jobs back home to the Unit­ed States.

UPDATE, 7:28 PM: Rom­ney trots out his favorite catch­phrase… “trick­le-down government.”

UPDATE, 7:28 PM: Rom­ney claims he’ll be strict with those we trade with. Yeah, right.

UPDATE, 7:29 PM: Mitt, where’s the evi­dence to sup­port the claim that busi­ness­es aren’t hir­ing because of the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act?

UPDATE, 7:31 PM: Oba­ma says he’d close loop­holes that reward out­sourc­ing. Romney’s poli­cies would cre­ate jobs overseas,

UPDATE, 7:32 PM: Crow­ley asks Rom­ney: How do we bring man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs back to the U.S.A.?

UPDATE, 7:33 PM: Crow­ley goes to Pres­i­dent Obama.

UPDATE, 7:34 PM: Oba­ma shouldn’t have said that some jobs won’t come back. That didn’t do any­thing for him. The Repub­li­cans will put that phrase into tele­vi­sion ads.

UPDATE, 7:34 PM: Rom­ney lame­ly chants, gov­ern­ment does not cre­ate jobs.

UPDATE, 7:34 PM: Soft­ball ques­tion for Mitt, and he rec­og­nizes it.

UPDATE, 7:35 PM: Mitt: “I care about a hun­dred per­cent of the Amer­i­can peo­ple.” Oops. Why’d Rom­ney open that door? Hope the Pres­i­dent gets rebut­tal time…

UPDATE, 7:36 PM: Rom­ney is basi­cal­ly giv­ing his clos­ing statement.

UPDATE, 7:37 PM: The debate is run­ning over. Good thing the major news net­works sched­uled post-debate “analy­sis” till 8 PM.

UPDATE, 7:38 PM: Oba­ma ham­mers Rom­ney for his forty-sev­en per­cent comments.

UPDATE, 7:39 PM: WOW, what a fin­ish by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma! No clos­ing state­ments, Oba­ma fin­ish­es by ask­ing for view­ers’ votes.

FINAL THOUGHT, 7:40 PM: This debate goes to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. He was superb. Absolute­ly superb.