Obama, Romney soften tone for one night only

White House rivals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney observed a brief truce in an increasingly ill-tempered campaign Thursday to appear back-to-back at a light-hearted charity dinner. The Al Smith dinner in New York has become a fixture of US presidential campaigns, and both candidates were to honor tradition by appearing at the glittering black-tie gala at Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria hotel. With just 19 days to go until polling day on November 6, and after a fierce head-to-head debate on Tuesday night, the tone of the national debate has become more bitter and aggressive as the race comes down to the line. The "Alfred E. Smith" dinner, named in honor of a former New York governor and held to raise money for Catholic charities, has a reputation for a gentler brand of humor, although both men will still try to score points. In 2008, for example, Obama teased his then opponent John McCain about his age, and joked: "If we keep talking about the economy, McCain's going to lose. So, tonight I'd like to talk about the economy." But both candidates also made jokes about themselves, and this year's dinner was expected to be a chance for both men to appear warmer and more likable than they have in the rough-and-tumble of the recent campaign. The evident dislike the men feel for each other -- compounded by the tension both must feel with opinion polls showing they neck-and-neck -- came to a head on Tuesday night in a fiercely-contested televised debate. So tense was the encounter that Romney's eldest son Tagg, a 42-year-old financier who has taken time off to support his father's campaign, told a radio station that it made him want to punch the president. Asked by North Carolina radio host Bill LuMaye what it was like to sit and hear Obama "call your dad a liar," Tagg Romney said you want to "jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him." Obama is seen as having had a disastrous first debate on October 3 and came back all guns blazing Tuesday, tagging Romney's tax plans as a "sketchy deal" designed to bamboozle voters into backing tax cuts for the rich. The next full debate will be on Monday, in Florida, on foreign policy -- territory on which Obama, who brought US troops out of Iraq and ordered the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed, should feel more comfortable. "I'm still trying to figure out how to get the hang of this thing, debating, but we're working on it. We'll keep on improving as time goes on. I've got one left," the 51-year-old president told voters on Wednesday. But Romney, a multi-millionaire private equity baron and ex-governor of Massachusetts, is not likely to allow the incumbent to forget he is presiding over a weak recovery and stubbornly high joblessness. "I love these debates. You know, these things are great. And I think it's interesting the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term," Romney said Wednesday in Virginia, another key toss-up state. With the result of the race likely to come down to the outcome in a handful of swing states, the candidates paths have criss-crossed one another in places like Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. So Thursday's dinner will be a rare foray for both into New York, a safe Obama stronghold, and the president planned to capitalize on the moment by appearing on The Daily Show, popular topical comedy hosted by Jon Stewart. Before the dinner, Obama was to head to New Hampshire, the only state in the otherwise solidly Democrat northeast that the Republican challenger might take from him on November 6 -- the latest CNN poll there has them tied. Obama's place on the Midwest trail was to be taken by Democrat supporter and rock 'n' roll star Bruce Springsteen, who was campaigning for Obama on Thursday in the must-win battlegrounds of Ohio and Iowa.