In the world, keep faith with our troops and go after those who would do us harm, but after a decade of war, i think we all recognize weve got to do some nation building here at home, rebuilding our roads, our bridges and especially caring for our veterans who sacrificed so much for our freedom. We bounce back because of our character, because we pull together. And if i have the privilege of being your president for another four years, i promise i will listen to your voices, fight for your families and i will work every single day to make sure that america continues to be the greatest nation on earth. Thank you. Governor . Thank you. Bob, mr. President , folks at Lynn University, good to be with you. Im optimistic about the future. Im excited about our prospects as a nation. I want to see peace. I want to see growing peace in this country. Its our objective. We have an opportunity to have real leadership. America is going to have that kind of leadership and continue to pro most principles of peace that will make the world a safer place and make people in this country more confident that their future is secure. I also want to make sure that we get this economy going, and there are two very different paths the country can take. One is a path represented by the president , which at the end of four years would mean we would have 20 trillion in debt. Ill get us on track to a balanced budget. The president s path would mean continuing declining in takehome pay. I want to make sure it starts to grow. The president s path means 20 Million People out of work struggling for a good job. Ill get people back to work with 12 million new jobs. Im going to make sure we get people off of food stamps by getting them good jobs. America is going to come back and for that to happen t were going to have to have a president who can work across the aisle. I was in a state where my legislature was 87 democrat. I learned how to get along on the other side of the aisle. Weve got to do that in washington. Washington is broken. I know what it takes to get this country back and well work with good democrats and good republicans to do that. This nation is the hope of the earth. Weve been blessed by having a nation thats free and prosperous thanks to the contributions of the greatest generation. Theyve held a torch for the world to see. A 20r much of freedom and hope and opportunity. Now its our turn to take that torch. Im convinced well do it. We need strong leadership. Id like to be that leader, with your support, ill work with you, ill lead you in an open and honest way. Ill ask for your vote. Id like to be the next president of the United States to help support and help this great nation and make sure that we together maintain america ags the hope of the earth. Thank you so much. Gentlemen, thank you both so much. That brings an end to this years debates and we want to thank Lynn University and its students for having us. Ill leave you with the words of my mom who said, go vote. It makes you feel big and strong. Thats great. Thank you bob. The third and final president ial debate wrapping up tonight in boca raton, florida. At the end, in the last 15 to 20 minutes, it veered widely out of its lane and on to a few metaphorical front lawns but it had up until that point made its way in an orderly fashion, matters facing the national, china, currency manipulation, libya, first extended discussion weve had in any debate thus far including the Vice President ial debate about treating the American Veterans when they come home from fighting these long wars, long discussions of iran, syria, egypt and afghanistan. Serious news tonight on afghanistan, as mitt romney committed without any qualification to the idea that troops should be withdrawn from afghanistan in 2014. This is a reversal for mitt romney, in terms of his previous stated conditions on that idea. He previously said i dont think you set hard and fast deadlines. That was to abc news on july 29th. I think the biggest mistake he, meaning president obama has made in afghanistan was announcing the specific date that he would withdraw. He said this president has done an extraordinary thing he announced the date of our withdrawal. That was wrong. Mr. Romney today just flat out reversing his previous rejection to there being a withdrawal date from afghanistan, as he very tightly hugged president obama on everything from drones to egypt to syria to a number of other matters tonight on which there was less disagreement than we might have expected before the debate. Chris matthews . Whats your take . Let me take my favorite role for a minute, my role of critic. You think about the United States. Lets talk about our country instead of the middle east and israel that was focused on far too much. Lets focus on the United States. Nothing about the drug trade coming through latinamerica which is the greatest threat to our culture in many ways. The failure of european finance, which is always hanging over us every day. We get new stock market worries about europe, no discussion whatever of europe, latin america of any way. It was all relentlessly on something that was referred to by romney, rees he relentliless as the tumult in the middle east and iran. Any jack ass can talk about bombing iran, they never talk about the consequences of what we do after we do bomb them. Thats the question we never talked about. I thought romney had a strategy tonight. Avoiding looking like a radical. Avoiding the statements hes made throughout the primaries and caucuses that put him on the far right. He pulled back, pulled back, pulled back. Obama was very good, obama as we might have expected, very good on the 7 trillion which will be added to the deficit, very good on education, very good on the iraq decision, romney was very good in the economy, obama didnt seem to have a good come back on the economy. It was sort of a pandering operation on israel, over and over again, say it two or three times. Not 20 times about israel being our number one ally. Going over the president s itinerary how he didnt stop in israel. He didnt talk about United States security, he didnt talk about drugs, didnt talk about European Economic problems. He didnt talk about the brick problems. No talk of the modern economy and the real economic and cultural military challenges to the United States and the financial ones. It was all about the same area of discussion. I thought it lacked any kind of originality and importance. Chris, what do you think happens with mitt romney and his right flank, if he even has one anymore, for him to be saying we dont want another iraq or afghanistan, we dont want military action in syria, we dont want military action unless we have to in iran. Hes reverseling himself in a way i think he would not have felt comfortable doing during the primary campaign. Well, i think theyre more political than either you or i. I think they hate obama. They want him out of the white house more than they want to destroy al qaeda. Their number one enemy on the right is their hate tread for obama. We can go into that in the White Working Class in the south about racial hatred in many cases. They want to get rid of this president. Thats their number one goal and theyre willing to let romney go to the hard center as long as they get rid of this guy. Romney went in there tonight with 16 ounce gloves. The way he wanted to win was not making himself into the right winger that the right wing thats supporting him really are. I want to take this to Steve Schmidt right now what i saw in terms of the stylistic and the leaning forward if i can steal our own phrase, was that mitt romney was his only real attack was when he did his riff you apologize and youre weak. Obama i felt had a lot of different attacks on romney and romney refused to engage. Absolutely. Mitt romney came across as reasonable, thoughtful, serious, president ial. Not somebody whos going to rashly start another war in the middle east, person of cautiousness. More a reset to a traditional style of Foreign Policy. And i think you could see it wear on president obama during the debate. I think at times he was unable to conceal thinks compahis cont romney which i think was evident in the debate. But overall, i think that they both did an effective job tonight. I dont think it changes anything. I think there were no big mistakes on it. You saw mitt romney talk about the economy effectively tonight, message aimed to ohio. I thought he was very effective talking about china. Whether you agree or disagree with his record on these issues. I think if youre a worker in ohio tonight, i think that his message would have had some resonance. So i think we have a very, very close race coming down the final two weeks. Where now the focus becomes turning out the votes that both sides have spent months and months targeting. Its going to be very very close all the way to the very end. I can tell from the look that you disagree. I do. First of all, i think that mitt romney came in the last debate a bully. The bully got beat. So they said lets have a fair one. Well have a third match. He came in tonight knowing he couldnt win so the strategy was jab and when he comes back, clench and hug and embrace. Dont give him room to knock you out. Just hold on until the end of the night. And he clenched all night trying to avoid a knock out every time obama pivoted back, clench, i agree with you. But you didnt say that yesterday, i agree with you, just dont knock me out and thats what he did tonight. He wanted to go out on his feet. For this man to stand there and just go the opposite of what he has said in various, clear statements just showed he wanted to survive the night. The other thing that i think was outrageous is that i think that hes suggesting Economic Development and all kinds of things for foreigners that he wants to cut at home. I wish that some of the things he would love to build in some of these nations that he wants to make friendly with us, he would do in south side chicago or harlem or southeast queens. Hes very benevolent with wanting to help others and not here. I think the president was right about nation building. I also think he showed that he really missed Foreign Affairs in school. He knew very little about Foreign Affairs. I think when they got into really thick issues of foreign affair policies, he did not understand them. He didnt grasp them. He was going on talking points and slogans. I have no idea what the romney doctrine would be. Its almost enough to make you miss george bush. At least you knew he had a doctrine. No one knows what the in world, literally, romney is talking about. In terms of his preparation, he did say that syria is irans route to the sea, which will come as a surprise to both syria and iran since they dont share a border. And iran has its own coast line. This is affirmation that the president is doing a great job on Foreign Policy. We just listened to the republican candidate tell the American People he is doing a good job. He was unsure of himself, he agreed with the president too much. Media research tweets out something is wrong with romney tonight hes refusing to challenge obamas failed policies. That came in 30 minutes into the debate. The right wing is sitting there saying who is this guy . Once again hes confused the people out there trying to support him and theres an identity crisis going on here in the Republican Party when it comes to their Foreign Policy. In the meantime youve got president obama having his challenger saying you know, youre doing all the right things on a number of different issues. Now weve got a new policy on afghanistan tonight, we got a new policy on what should have been going on with iraq. This was a bad performance. As an obama supporter and as a guy that thinks president obama deserves another four years, i feel like the president won a second term tonight. Reality tells me Something Else. Weve still got a long way to go. The last two debates have gone to the president. He was far more president ial. Romney never got specific on anything when it came to Foreign Policy other than he agreed with the president on a number of issues. I was struck by the Record Number of agreements. Ive been trying to sift through in my notes. Where were the areas of substantive disagreement. I think the red line for iran or implied the red line for iran was capability of a weapon, the big debate is happening right now is whether the quote, red line for iran, or having a weapon or capability of having a weapon. Mitt romney has said in the past that it was capability and then hes walked it back so tonight i think he said capability again which represents a significant difference between the stated policy of the American Government and mitt romney and literally aside from that, i cannot put my finger on a policy, aside from Pentagon Spending which was litigated quite a bit. There may have been others, but was really striking the degree of agreement for mitt romney. The thing important about that too, he said i completely agree with you on drones, on syria, on afghanistan and that is a complete reversal of my previous position. But on the libyan issue as well as afghanistan issue, hes not only hugging the president , but hes denying that he ever previously criticized this position. Romnesia. This is a question of whether or not he denied he ever held them becomes a character issue. I think that when you see but when you see him not only deny it, but argue it. I mean, you have a man who not only flipped position, but actually argued no, i never said that. And people can go to the record and check that i never said that. I mean, that is a cause for concern. Steve, on that issue, about not saying i used to believe that afghanistan a timeline would be a disaster. Ive called it a mistake but now i see thats true, ive changed my mind. Not saying that, but denying he previously held another position. I think the Romney Campaign has made a political calculation i suspect theyre right there will not be a political price to pay for his flexibility on these issue changes. And one of the things that you and i have talked about over the course of the year is the tension in the Republican Party between the neoconservative wing of the party and a republican voter in this country that doesnt have an appetite for more military engagement in more countries. And you saw tonight the republican nominee i think in a very decisive way indicate where he is on these issues. He understands where the country is and i thought you saw a departure tonight from a lot of the rhetoric that you saw earlier in the campaign. I think people will have to evaluate that. We have a small number of states with an incredibly small percentage of voters that are still persuadable. The Obama Campaign now has to make a difficult decision. Do you try to impeach mitt romneys credibility on these issues where theres clear divergences or do you go out and talk about the economy . I think the Romney Campaign would like nothing more to see attacks on mitt romneys issue position switches on Foreign Policy issues, as opposed to the debate i think that youre right, let me just say. That political calculation makes so much sense to me if there were not 68,000 american lives on the line. And thats what infuriates me. Because this is a real war. This is not changing your mind about your policy on light rail. This is changing your mind and denying your previous positions that are on the record about the fate, the lives and deaths of 68,000 americans and asserting that not only is it okay for you to change your mind, i believe in people changing their mind, but that you can get away with running from the things that you had previously claimed with your heart dpfelt believes and denying that they were ever true. Its a character issue and i find it disqualifying. John mccain gave a serious of issues, very tough, ripped the bark off president obama on a series of National Security issues. Until mitt romney event efrd the debate tontd those were his positions. He left the debate tonight fundamentally agreeing with president obama on his Foreign Policy on issue after issue. And thats the failure. And i think it was effective and i think that in its effectiveness he demonstration, cautiousness, attributes. I think people want seriousness on the issue of war. I think that people can accept you changing your mind. But not at the risk of my behind. Were talking about war. Were talking about life and death. And they are in afghanistan now. And then i think that i wouldnt if i were the obama team go through his contradictions. I would talk about he represents Different Things different places. Hes for gender equalifity in the middle east but hes not for it here in the United States. Hes for everybody practicing democracy there but hes for voter id here. I would point out its schizophrenia when you look at the positions he represent the tonight and what hes actually saying. How the Obama Campaign handles this moving forward i think is really a slam dunk and an easy decision to make. Go to the economy, stay on the economy and win ohio and youre going to go back to the white house. I think tonight the country saw that mitt romney agrees with barack obama on a number of different issues. Its the right wing thats going to be causing problems for mitt romney here on out. They dont know who the guy is or how to trust him. Tonight one of the issues on china, i thought the president hit mitt romney really good. No president not even Ronald Reagan has stood up to china the way barack obama has and been successful doing it. Tonight mitt romney tried to reinvent himself and filibusters on the automobile loan. The country knows the truth on that. So i think when it c