President Obama and Mitt Romney are headed to Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida on October 22nd for the final presidential debate, and so is Morning Joe.

We will be live at Racks Downtown Eatery and Tavern in Mizner Park.

The address is: 402 Plaza Real Boca Raton, FL 33442.

The event is open, so if you're in the area, come on down and hang out with us starting at 5:30 a.m.

TIME TO PACK UP
EDITORIAL
NEW YORK TIMES

After more than a decade of having American blood spilled in Afghanistan, with nearly six years lost to President George W. Bush’s disastrous indifference, it is time for United States forces to leave Afghanistan on a schedule dictated only by the security of the troops. It should not take more than a year.... Americans are desperate to see the war end and the 68,000 remaining troops come home. President Obama has not tasked military commanders with recommending a pace for the withdrawal until after the election. He and the coalition partners have committed to remain engaged in Afghanistan after 2014 at reduced levels, which could involve 15,000 or more American troops to carry out specialized training and special operations. Mr. Obama, or Mitt Romney if he wins, will have a hard time convincing Americans that makes sense — let alone Afghans.

THE RADICAL IS ROMNEY, NOT RYAN
STEVEN RATTNER
NEW YORK TIMES

President Obama should use Tuesday night’s debate to press Mr. Romney to defend — or even just explain — these proposed cuts, which would be far more draconian than those advanced by his running mate, Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan is widely viewed as the real fiscal hawk, but in key areas, his views on spending levels are actually closer to Mr. Obama’s than to Mr. Romney’s. ...with respect to nearly half the budget, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan widely diverge from each other. Mr. Romney is calling for a huge increase in defense spending — roughly $2 trillion more over the next decade than Mr. Ryan wants to spend, which is only $400 billion above Mr. Obama’s budget — even though the military is not asking for such an increase. Such an increase would force giant reductions, about 40 percent, in everything that’s left.

Here's a look at the stories we're following right now. What are you reading this morning?

Presidential contest tight nationally ahead of second debate

Arlen Specter leaves long-lasting impact on high court

Romney Features Laughing Biden in New TV Ad

Obama’s Debate Prep Goal: Don’t Repeat Mistakes

Girl shot by Taliban in Pakistan sent to UK for treatment

'Fearless Felix' jumps through sound barrier

Eric Cantor might be a Young Gun, but he won't be showing off his guns anytime soon à la his colleague Paul Ryan's AC Slater-esque gym rat photo session published in Time this week.

The Republican house majority leader recapped the vice presidential debate with Morning Joe on Friday, but Cantor first tamped down any suggestion that he had any skeletons in his closet in the form of a P90x workout photo shoot.

"Are there an pictures of you lifting weights like there are of Paul? He's pretty strut," host Joe Scarborough joked.

"No," Cantor asserted. "I can assure you not."

"Are you sure?"

Time dug into its vault to unearth photos from when Ryan, who is now the GOP vice presidential nominee, was runner-up for the magazine's Person of the Year. The photo spread was published online and in print on the very day of Ryan's vice presidential debate debut.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

Here's a look at the stories we're following right now. What are you reading this morning?

Biden and Ryan go head to head in first VP debate

Watch the entire debate

Truth Squad: Examining the candidates' statements

Sharp words as Ryan, Biden face off

European Union wins Nobel Peace Prize

With Stakes High, Candidates Wrangle for Upper Hand

Forceful Raddatz draws praise as moderator

'47 Percent' Finally Makes Debate Appearance

ABC News/AP

Undated handout photo of ABC News' Martha Raddatz

ABC News journalist Martha Raddatz has become a much-discussed name going into tonight's Vice Presidential debate due to the fact that in 1991 President Obama attended Raddatz's wedding to her first husband Julius Genachowski.

Genachowski and Obama were classmates at Harvard Law.

Raddatz will be serving as moderator of the event, which will be held in Danville, Kentucky at Centre College, and the conservative web site, the Daily Caller, appears to feel strongly about the connection.

"In August, The Daily Caller first connected Genachowski, an Obama appointee, to Raddatz following her selection as the vice presidential debate moderator by the left-leaning Commission on Presidential Debates," The Daily Caller's Josh Peterson writes in a story published yesterday.

DEMOCRATS AT THE DEEP END
GAIL COLLINS
NEW YORK TIMES

You have to calm down, Democrats. Romney hasn’t turned into some new supercandidate. You were just underestimating him during September. He’s the same old Mitt. This week in Des Moines, he told an editorial board that he doesn’t have any plans for pushing anti-abortion bills if he’s elected. ...Meanwhile, back at headquarters, his spokeswoman was assuring National Review that he “would, of course, support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life.” Maybe this will come up in the vice-presidential debate. Do you remember how well Joe Biden did against Sarah Palin? Things haven’t really gone off the deep end for the Obama campaign. They’ve gone back to normal. You knew that the Obama-is-going-to-win-by-10-points euphoria wasn’t going to last.

PREMATURE DESPERATION
CHARLES M. BLOW
NEW YORK TIMES

Romney’s post-debate bounce essentially wiped out Obama’s post-convention bounce so we’re pretty much back to where we started: a tight race in which the president holds a narrow lead (when all polls are taken together), but also one in which he is still highly favored to win the electoral college.Those numbers could change, but they haven’t yet. I can understand a certain amount of unease in the Obama-supporting public in general, but within the left-leaning press it’s inexcusable. Only the laziest political commentators could look at the current state of play and see doom for Obama.

Must-Read Op-Eds for Oct. 10, 2012

Must-Read Op-Eds for Oct. 9, 2012

Here's a look at the stories we're following right now. What are you reading this morning?

NBC/WSJ/Marist poll: Romney gains in key swing states

Biden faces pressure in VP debate

Ibanez's HRs save, then win Game 3 for Yankees

As Nov. nears, Romney shifts closer to center

GOP Congressman Doctor Pushed Mistress Patient To Get Abortion

5 things to watch in VP debate

Doping agency: Armstrong led cheating scheme

JPMorgan CEO Dimon: I'll pay more taxes

Lines of attack clarify in latest Brown-Warren debate

Chuck Burton / AP

Vice President Joe Biden

Just how much pressure are both sides feeling going into tomorrow's VP debate at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky?

"Team Obama NEEDS a strong performance from Biden to make up for last week and change the subject," NBC News' First Read blog states today. "...another bad outing by a member of the ticket and the Democratic handwringing could turn into a full-fledged panic. Meanwhile, Team Romney needs a solid outing from Ryan to keep up the momentum."

Obama Campaign Senior Adviser Robert Gibbs joined Morning Joe today to discuss, in part, Thursday's debate.

Watch the clip below:

IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT US
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NEW YORK TIMES

Mitt Romney gave a foreign policy speech on Monday that could be boiled down to one argument: everything wrong with the Middle East today can be traced to a lack of leadership by President Obama. If this speech is any indication of the quality of Romney’s thinking on foreign policy, then we should worry. It was not sophisticated in describing the complex aspirations of the people of the Middle East. It was not accurate in describing what Obama has done or honest about the prior positions Romney has articulated. And it was not compelling or imaginative in terms of the strategic alternatives it offered. The worst message we can send right now to Middle Easterners is that their future is all bound up in what we do. It is not. The Arab-Muslim world has rarely been more complicated and more in need of radical new approaches by us — and them.

OBAMA'S ROCKY MOUNTAIN HORROR SHOW
JOE SCARBOROUGH
POLITICO

...Is the 44th president no more than a mediocre political talent who’s had one of the greatest runs of luck in history? And did that luck begin to run out in Denver last Wednesday during the homestretch of his final campaign? A week later, many Democrats fear that it did. ... It is possible that the political class has overestimated Barack Obama’s talents for too long now. But I suspect Wednesday night’s outcome was more the result of an arrogant campaign underestimating a former Massachusetts governor. That proved to be a pretty dumb thing to do to a guy who breezed through Harvard, revolutionized Wall Street, saved a Winter Olympics, signed a landmark health care bill with Ted Kennedy by his side, raised five gifted boys, and retains the love and respect of a woman he first met in elementary school. Like every campaign that crossed swords with Ronald Reagan, Chicago’s arrogance blew up in their face. The question now is whether Barack Obama will suffer the same fate as Gov. Pat Brown and President Jimmy Carter. The answer to that question is anyone’s guess.

Must-Read Op-Eds for Oct. 9, 2012

Must-Read Op-Eds for Oct. 8, 2012

In association with the National Book Foundation, Morning Joe is happy to announce the 2012 National Book Award Finalists.

Fiction

Head of Fiction Panel
Lorrie Moore, author, most recently, A Gate at the Stairs

Finalists

Junot Díaz
This Is How You Lose Her
Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Diaz’s second collection of short stories featuring the alter ego “Yunior”, who as a boy and young man was the central character in his first collection “Drown”. His voice is distinctive, mixing popular and high culture, comic books and literature.

Dave Eggers
A Hologram for the King
McSweeney’s Books

In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter’s college tuition, and finally do something great, with mixed results.

Louise Erdrich
The Round House
Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe.

Here's a look at the stories we're following right now. What are you reading this morning?

Officials: Frantic search failed to find envoy in Benghazi

Libya security becomes explosive campaign issue

Teen blogger shot by Taliban 'critical' after surgery

Romney says abortion legislation isn’t part of his agenda

CNN Poll: Race tightening up in battleground Ohio

Poll: Romney Cuts Into Obama's Lead In New Hampshire