Other views: Town hall debate is a tie

• Romney wrapped miserable economy around incumbent's neck.
• But then he made a blunder on Libya.
• No one threw a knockout punch.

Ron Fournier,The Atlantic: "Who won? The cheap answer is President Obama because his goal following a catastrophically sluggish first debate was so clear: Show some life. And, indeed, the president aggressively criticized Mitt Romney, labeling him a hypocrite and a liar who favors the rich at the expense of the middle class and poor. But Romney got his licks in, too, wrapping a miserable economy around the incumbent's neck. 'The middle class is getting crushed by the policies of a president who does not understand what it takes to get the economy working again,' Romney said. Bottom line: Call it a tie."

Megan McArdle, The Daily Beast: "The difficulty of running against a challenger is that he doesn't have a record to run against. Obama has chosen to deal with this problem by simply declaring that Romney's plans are not what Romney says they are, and that instead the president knows what they are. Maybe it's working, but it sounds profoundly silly. It's fair enough in cases like his tax plan, where the numbers don't really add up, but when Romney calls him out for selectively quoting something Romney says, Obama responds by essentially claiming that he can see into Romney's secret heart."

Zeke Miller, Buzzfeed: "Obama turned his administration's worst foreign policy disaster into a dramatic victory in Tuesday's debate when Romney sought to stretch the criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the incident. The Republican attacked Obama for, he said, calling the attack on Benghazi a terrorist attack until two weeks later, only to be interrupted — and corrected — brusquely by moderator Candy Crowley, who noted that Obama had used the phrase 'acts of terror' in the Rose Garden immediately after the attack. The blunder, the one moment Tuesday when a candidate seemed genuinely rattled, may have been the product of, if anything, overpreparation."

Matt Lewis, The Daily Caller: "Overall, conservatives who were skeptical of the Town Hall format probably had reason to be. Individuals are understandably more concerned with their own pressing personal concerns than with macro policy issues, so it's not terribly surprising that the first question about Libya didn't come until more than an hour into the debate. Politicians who believe government can solve problems seem to have an inherent advantage in this format."

Robert Schlesinger, U.S. News & World Report: "This was a much stronger performance for the president than the first debate. Romney remained polished. No one threw a knockout punch but Romney whiffed on the Libya question, a gaffe-by-omission on his part. The first debate aside -- it was ahistorical -- these events tend not to move the needle much so we'll see how much of a difference this makes."