Kerry got a 4 point bump out of his 2004 debate and I suspect we are seeing something similar for Romney and the good news for him is he was only 4 points behind and Kerry was 6 points behind. So Romney may have moved to a tie, but I still think that Obama has an edge in OH, WI and NV and Romney needs to move into +0.5 to 1% to break through one of those. If Romney can win the town hall debate, I think he could win the election.
Considering historically, how horrible Romney is in such formats that aren't "pre-arranged/scripted", a Romney win in such a venue would probably cause significant move for him.
I think that the last debate is most important. Regardless of what happens in the first two on mostly domestic stuff, if Mittens comes off like an idiot who can't be trusted with the nukes, Obama will have this locked up similar to how FDR won 1940 on foriegn policy/national security.
