Thursday night's big political event, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner featuring President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, could be a somewhat tense affair.
A hallmark of presidential campaigns, the Al Smith dinner is often called a "de-militarized zone" of the campaign season, when the candidates share a room in a far less contentious atmosphere than the official debates. But Obama and Romney could barely contain their animus toward one another on the debate stage at Hofstra University on Tuesday.