Fact checks and analysis

10:43 p.m. | ANALYSIS: To sum up, my quick take is that Romney had some good answers tonight at times - especially in his indictments of Obama's economic record. But all in all, most will score this a win for Obama. The president and his team promised to be better-prepared, and they were. A night-and-day difference from Denver.

-- Scott Helman

10:41 p.m. | ANALYSIS: So now, it's clear Obama was saving the 47 percent attack for his closing argument, knowing he would get the last word. That turns out to be pretty smart, because it leaves those words in viewers' heads without giving Romney a chance to rebut.

-- Scott Helman

10:38 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Romney: The biggest misconception is that I don't care about people - all of them. Here we are in October 2012 - almost 20 years after Romney first entered politics - and he's still fighting the perception that he's a cold-hearted capitalist. Oh, and here's the 47 percent bit. Obama was saving it for his kicker.

-- Scott Helman

10:33 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Obama said he will close tax loopholes that allow employers to deduct the cost of their expenses if they move off-shore. That's a key tax break for many companies. Romney has not been as specific when he talks about loopholes and which ones he will close.

-- Megan Woolhouse

10:32 p.m. | ANALYSIS: We're in the waning minutes here, and Obama has yet to raise Romney's "47 percent" comments. I'm not sure he has needed it, but it's the one thing lots of people on the left wanted to hear. Will they be disappointed?

-- Scott Helman

10:29 p.m. | ANALYSIS: These questions on China, outsourcing, and foreign jobs would be so much better for Romney without the Bain record. Let's see what Obama does with it.

-- Scott Helman

10:24 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Following up on the issue of women partners at Bain Capital ... private equity was a male-dominated field in the '80s and '90s when Romney ran the firm. It remains so today, although Bain now has a number of women partners.

-- Beth Healy

10:24 p.m. | ANALYSIS: And Candy Crowley saves Obama from a longer discussion of the mess that is Fast and Furious. The focus returns to Romney and his shifts in position - he was for gun control in the past, but has changed. Romney in 1994: My positions won't make me a friend of the NRA.

-- Scott Helman

10:22 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Who cut funding for embassy security? In the latest State Department budget, for fiscal year 2012, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to cut worldwide security by $145 million from what the Obama administration requested, while cutting embassy security by $376 million.

-- Bryan Bender

10:16 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Strong answer from Obama responding to Romney's attacks, saying he finds the politicization of all this "offensive."

-- Scott Helman

10:14 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Not to say there aren't serious questions about lapses in Libya, but the focus on this attack - and the extent to which Romney has tried to grab onto it - demonstrates the unanticipated advantage Democrats have had on foreign policy and national security this cycle.

-- Scott Helman

10:12 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Romney's right to an extent that Obama, despite Hillary Clinton taking responsibility for what happened in Libya, just wrapped his big arms around the State Department. These are my folks, he says.

-- Scott Helman

10:11 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Obama asked is asked who denied "enhanced security and why" in Libya? The president says he ordered beef up of security after attack but so far doesn't answer the question and attacks Romney's criticism of his handling of the tragedy. Romney should pounce. But the fact remains that both parties presided over cuts in diplomatic security.

-- Bryan Bender

10:09 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Republicans will say Obama's personal dig at Romney's wealth was a cheap shot. Again: It's clear that the president isn't giving Romney any quarter tonight.

-- Scott Helman

10:07 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Romney and the immigration "model" in Arizona: Here's what Romney said during a GOP debate in February: "You know, I think you see a model here in Arizona. They passed a law here that says, that says that people who come here and try and find work, that the employer is required to look them up on E-Verify. This E-Verify system allows employers in Arizona to know who's here legally and who's not here legally. And as a result of E-Verify being put in place, the number of people in Arizona that are here illegally has dropped by some 14 percent, where the national average has only gone down 7 percent."

-- Callum Borchers

10:03 p.m. | ANALYSIS: The Obama administration, for anyone who doesn't know, has actually been tougher than a lot of people think on illegal immigrants, in terms of deportations and workplace raids.

-- Scott Helman

9:57 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Romney - the guy who loves to wallow in data - is delivering some effective stats here about poverty, food stamps, and job numbers, and using them to indict Obama's first term.

-- Scott Helman

9:57 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Obama promised a 5.4 percent unemployment rate by now: Romney's claim is based on a report Obama's Council of Economic Advisers prepared before Obama took office. The council predicted that passage of Obama's stimulus package would prevent unemployment from rising above 8 percent -- a fact Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney cites frequently -- and would bring it down to the mid-5s in the third quarter of 2012.

-- Callum Borchers

9:57 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Romney successfully closed a $3 billion budget gap in his first fiscal year as governor of Massachusetts. He succeeded in closing the shortfall without raising the state sales or income taxes — a notable accomplishment. But he also balanced the budget largely by cutting state aid to cities and towns, many of which responded by raising property taxes. In his first two years in office, Romney presided over a 15 percent cut in spending on unrestricted aid to cities and towns; he also cut more than 4 percent of funding for local schools. Largely as a result, the average local property tax bill jumped more than $700 a year, or about 24 percent, to $3,962 from $3,206.

-- Megan Woolhouse

9:55 p.m. | ANALYSIS: More than half-way through, Romney is wishing the Denver Obama had showed up at Hofstra. By this point in the last debate, the president had said "uh" three or four million times.

-- Scott Helman

9:52 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Obama's 5 million jobs created: The figure is roughly accurate, but it includes only private-sector jobs and omits an entire year of Obama's presidency. In total, there are 61,000 fewer people on nonfarm payrolls today than there were when Obama took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

-- Callum Borchers

9:52 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Obama is really using every opportunity here to go after Romney. So far he's doing it in a relatively polite fashion, but he has to be careful not to turn off these folks in the room. They want more than just a sword fight.

-- Scott Helman

9:52 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Obama said Romney's the last person who's going to get tough on China. He was referring in part to Bain's investment in a Chinese manufacturer.

-- Beth Healy

9:49 p.m.: ANALYSIS: The Obama team right now is surely thrilled that he got the opportunity to talk directly to women. Polls have shown some erosion of support among women, threatening what has long been one of Chicago's secret weapons.

-- Scott Helman

9:44 p.m. | ANALYSIS: For Romney, he's hoping that all these various constituencies - women, Latinos, for example - see unemployment as the most important problem, and that everything else is secondary. He could win that way.

-- Scott Helman

9:43 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Check out these recent findings by the US Census Bureau on pay disparity here.

-- Megan Woolhouse

9:42 p.m. | FACT CHECK: There were no women partners at Bain Capital during Romney's tenure.

-- Beth Healy

9:38 p.m. | ANALYSIS: The question on women's pay is one Obama would have chosen himself. Legitimate issue, to be sure, but it's a total softball, and right in his wheelhouse.

-- Scott Helman

9:37 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Obama doubled the deficit: Romney's claim that Obama "doubled" the deficit is true -- and actually understated -- in a simple comparison between $459 billion in fiscal year 2008 and $1.4 trillion in 2009. But the 2009 fiscal year began while George W. Bush was still president, and the budget for the year was largely set before Obama took office.

Two weeks before Obama's inauguration, the Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for the 2009 fiscal year. Since the final deficit was $1.4 trillion, Obama might be blamed fairly for adding to -- but not doubling -- the deficit.

The deficit projection for the current fiscal year is $901 billion, about $500 billion less than the deficit during Obama's first year in office but not the 50 percent reduction he promised.

-- Callum Borchers

9:36 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Obama calls Romney a successful investor, referring to his Bain days. The president suggests Romney wouldn't, when analyzing a deal at Bain, have taken math that "doesn't add up."

-- Beth Healy

9:35 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Ooh, this is a sneaky move by Obama: Using Romney's Bain career to say Romney the investor would have never bought the stuff Romney the candidate is selling today. "You wouldn't have taken such a sketchy deal," Obama says. Tough stuff. Romney points to his balanced budgets in the past as a retort.

-- Scott Helman

9:35 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Massachusetts unemployment fell to 4.7 percent from a peak of 6 percent under Romney. The state unemployment rate was also above the US average, then 4.4 percent.

-- Megan Woolhouse

9:33 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Obama said Romney faced a deep recession while governor of Massachusetts. He's right, more than 200,000 jobs disappeared in the state. The state's recovery under Romney was also lackluster; Romney added just 31,000 jobs during his tenure, a growth rate of 1 percent. Nationally jobs were growing at a rate of 5 percent.

-- Megan Woolhouse

9:33 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Romney's tax cut: The $5 trillion figure Obama uses comes from an analysis of Romney's tax plan by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. But it represents only part of Romney's proposal, not the entirety.

Romney does want to cut taxes. He'd lower every American's federal income tax rate by a fifth, reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, eliminate the estate tax and make other cuts. The Tax Policy Center estimated Romney's cuts would total $480 billion in 2015, or roughly $5 trillion over 10 years.

But Romney has pledged that his tax overhaul would be revenue-neutral -- that he would offset every dollar lost to cuts by closing tax loopholes and eliminating deductions, though he has not said which ones.

Romney also has promised that his loophole closures and deduction eliminations will not result in a net tax increase on the middle class. The Tax Policy Center concluded that Romney cannot accomplish both goals – revenue neutrality and protecting the middle class from tax hikes – but Princeton economist Harvey S. Rosen and others have argued that he can.

-- Callum Borchers

9:29 p.m. | ANALYSIS: In many ways, this debate - in fact this juncture of the campaign - is a battle over who defines Mitt Romney, not President Obama. Romney is continuing his reinvention here as a moderate voice, something he did very effectively in the last debate. Obama needs to undercut that to arrest his slide.

-- Scott Helman

9:28 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Obama's $3,600 tax cut: That's the average spread over four years for a family making $50,000 per year.

-- Callum Borchers

9:25 p.m. | ANALYSIS: A big test coming up here: Will Obama, unlike last time, use this tax question to really confront Romney on whether his tax math adds up?

-- Scott Helman

9:25 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Oil production on federal land: Romney claimed oil production on federal land is down 14 percent under Obama. But that's a one-year number. Last year, oil production on federal land was down 13.8 percent, compared to the previous year.

But overall, oil production on federal land under Obama is up from 566 million barrels in 2008 to 626 million barrels in 2011, a 10.6 percent increase.

-- Callum Borchers

9:24 p.m. | ANALYSIS: Moderator Candy Crowley is going to have her hands full tonight. Neither Obama nor Romney want to given an inch. Remember "Crossfire" ? This is like "Crossfire" without chairs.

-- Scott Helman

9:20 p.m. | ANALYSIS: This face-to-face moment is quite striking, allowed by this unique format. We're in for a rollicking 90 minutes, my friends.

-- Scott Helman

9:19 p.m. | FACT CHECK: This is Romney's coal plant kills remark.

-- Callum Borchers

9:11 p.m. | ANALYSIS: So here we already see a big break from Obama's past performance: He's going after Romney hard here on his business background, his words on the auto industry, and his honesty. Democrats feeling relieved that Obama showed up with a pulse.

-- Scott Helman

9:07 p.m. | FACT CHECK: Romney's scholarship for high-scoring Mass. students: The John and Abigail Adams Scholarships cover only tuition at state colleges, not fees, which account for more than 80 percent of yearly costs at some schools. Just a quarter of the recipients actually choose to attend state colleges.

-- Callum Borchers

9:06 p.m. | ANALYSIS: This question on jobs after college plays to both Romney and Obama. Romney can hit the sluggish job market. Obama will surely talk about his work to help with student loans. Will he target Republicans for trying to keep rate high? It might be the first opportunity for a clear contrast.

-- Scott Helman

9:02 p.m. | ANALYSIS: I'll be waiting to see whether Romney -- or Obama -- bring up Romney's record as Massachusetts governor. I'll aim to set the facts straight.

-- Megan Woolhouse

8:56 p.m. | ANALYSIS: One big thing to watch for tonight, I think, is how Romney responds if - OK, when - Obama goes after him. Romney can be great when he's on offense, as we saw in the Denver debate. But despite all the time he's spent in the political spotlight, he can still get rattled easily. A confident, calm Mitt Romney can attract votes. A brittle Mitt Romney can't.

-- Scott Helman

8:56 p.m. | ANALYSIS: I am Bryan Bender, the Boston Globe's national security reporter based in Washington. I will be providing context tonight on President Obama and Governor Romney's statements on defense and foreign policy. Keep an ear out for issues where the candidates have been pushing dueling narratives in recent weeks: the alleged terrorist attack in Libya; the American relationship with Israel; the timeline and pace of withdrawal in Afghanistan; defense spending cuts; and international efforts to halt Iran's enrichment of nuclear material. Look for President Obama to try to make Romney appear naive and unprepared for the role of commander-in-chief, even unnecessarily provocative (and remind voters of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and his promise fulfilled to get out of Iraq). Look for Governor Romney to try to make the case that Obama has weakened America's influence in the world and undercut American exceptionalism.

-- Bryan Bender

8:44 p.m. | ANALYSIS: I'll be contributing some live analysis tonight during the debate. I'm a co-author, with Michael Kranish, of the Globe's biography of Mitt Romney, "The Real Romney." I also covered Romney as governor, and as a presidential hopeful in 2008. Fifteen minutes away, so stay tuned!

-- Scott Helman