A Serious Debate Prep Session for Obama President Obama stepped away from his preparations on Sunday to visit a campaign office in Williamsburg, Va., and meet volunteers, including Suzanne Stern, left, and Alexa Kissinger. WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - To prepare for the second round of the presidential debates, President Obama retreated here this weekend - to the environs of this historic village where actors in 18th century garb wander about spouting off in colonial diction. But as Mr. Obama huddled with close aides on the spectacular resort grounds of what was the Kingsmill Plantation in the 17th century, the history that dominated his presidential study sessions was of a far more recent kind: how not to repeat the mistakes he made at his first debate with Mitt Romney a week and a half ago, when he stood by passively as an aggressive Mr. Romney dominated him, abruptly curtailing Mr. Obama's momentum and turning the campaign upside down. The president and his aides were clearly taking debate prep far more seriously this time around. Mr. Obama has scheduled more time, and his aides say that they will try to keep interruptions to a minimum. He is on a resort with not one, but three, golf courses, but he did not bring his clubs and had no plans to hit the links. There will not be any visits to historic sites (he was criticized for going to the Hoover Dam when he was supposed to be studying for the last debate, in Denver); his sole off-campus excursion on Sunday took only half an hour. It was to a campaign field office here where he made a few phone calls to volunteers, delivered pizza to staff members, and pronounced his debate prep as "going great" in answer to a shouted question from a reporter. Incongruously, a Ferrari convention was taking place at the president's James River resort - called "Ferraris on the James." The cars, which glided to the river - in clear view of the main building where Mr. Obama was doing his prep sessions - were accompanied by the ubiquitous Ferrari-owner types who stood around languidly, hands in the pockets of their crisply ironed slacks, while valet attendants peered at various undercarriages. No word on whether the president found it distracting. This time, instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of debate facts - no one thinks the president needs to bone up on American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, for instance - Mr. Obama is practicing how to challenge Mr. Romney, something he inexplicably shied away from in Denver on Oct. 3. "This isn't a guy who needs be grilled on facts," one Obama aide said of the president. What he needs to work on is stylistic. Translation: how to accuse Mr. Romney of twisting the facts without seeming rude. Mr. Obama watched his running mate, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., take on Representative Paul D. Ryan in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday night, and Mr. Biden is widely viewed as having done a far better job than his boss. Mr. Obama's aides were at Mr. Biden's prep sessions, so presumably they picked up pointers. Mr. Obama watched the vice-presidential debate aboard Air Force One flying back to Washington from Miami, where he had appeared at a campaign rally. He huddled with six aides in the conference room aboard the plane to watch Mr. Biden interrupt Mr. Ryan, grin constantly to convey disbelief at Mr. Ryan's assertions, and twice call the congressman's presentation of facts "malarkey." That was pretty good! Mr. Obama said again and again at Mr. Biden's zingers, according to one aide in the room with the president. After landing at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after the debate, Mr. Obama broke with tradition and approached reporters gathered under the wing of Air Force One to say he was proud of his running mate's performance. He could not say that about his own performance the week before, though. "He knew when he walked off that stage, and he also knew as he watched the tape of that debate, that he has to be more energetic," Robert Gibbs, an Obama adviser, said on CNN's "State of the Union." This time around, Mr. Gibbs said, "I think you'll see somebody who is very passionate about the choice that our country faces." The president's aides say that Mr. Obama, who is fiercely competitive about everything from basketball to golf to Taboo games with his daughters, is now viewing Tuesday's debate at Hofstra University on Long Island as a chance for him, with his back against the wall, to come out swinging against Mr. Romney. But he must also try not to appear desperate and must take into account the different format of the next debate, which will be town-hall style, with questions coming from people in the audience. So during the debate sessions, Mr. Obama is working on how to answer questions posed by the audience in a respectful way, while still drawing contrasts. Another major unknown is the degree to which the moderator, Candy Crowley, of CNN, asks follow-up questions. At the first presidential debate, Jim Lehrer of PBS did not ask many follow-up questions, while ABC's Martha Raddatz did during the vice-presidential debate. During Mr. Obama's prep sessions here, aides have played the part of Hofstra audience members, asking questions that range from the investigation into the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, to Iran's nuclear program to the debate on how to rein in the deficit. Senator John Kerry, a k a Mr. Romney during prep sessions, has been spotted eating pizza and walking around the grounds of the resort with a thick binder filled with color-coded spacers. The Obama adviser David Axelrod, cellphone permanently attached to his ear, is here, as are other advisers, including Ron Klain, Anita Dunn - who is playing the part of Ms. Crowley, the moderator - and David Plouffe. To help on the foreign policy side, Ben Rhodes, a deputy on the National Security Council, and Marie Harf, a former Central Intelligence Agency spokeswoman turned campaign adviser, are on hand. Unlike the last debate, where the focus was domestic policy, this debate will likely have a heavy foreign policy focus, and Mr. Romney is expected to go after Mr. Obama over the shifting White House story about the developments surrounding the attack in Benghazi, where four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed.