Arlington, Va.
Arthur Howland is a 34-year-old analyst for the Navy and a lifelong resident of Arlington. Howland voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and he’s pretty sure he’ll vote for Obama again. He calls himself an independent and an Eisenhower Republican—he’s for a fiscally responsible government that isn’t afraid to spend money when it needs to, he says. He didn’t watch the first presidential debate, but he heard Obama was pretty lousy.

“He wasn’t aggressive enough, is what I heard,” Howland tells me as we wait for our beers at Bailey’s Pub, where the Arlington Young Democrats are watching the town hall debate. “That’s one of the things I want to see from Obama tonight.”