The Choice 2012

Tagg Romney discusses what Mitt and Ann Romney are like as parents, as well as lessons his father learned running the Olympics, serving as a governor, and losing his bid for the White House in 2008.

He met Obama at a New Year's Eve party in San Francisco, while Obama was attending Occidental College, and the two men later became roommates in New York. "I saw a transformation in the Barry I had met in Occidental," Siddiqi recalls about Obama's New York years. "He got very serious and less lighthearted, and our conversations were more about serious things."

Obama's childhood friend Tom Topolinski talks about their time together in high school in Hawaii, how their group of friends came to be called the "Choom Gang," and Obama's basketball skills.

Obama took on a giant of the Chicago political scene — and lost. Badly. Watch a clip from one of his first debates.

Arguably the most pivotal exchange of Mitt Romney's first debate against Ted Kennedy in 1994 came on an issue that continues to dog him today: health care reform.

Un viaje a los lugares, personas y momentos decisivos en la formación de los dos hombres que compiten por la presidencia. Cientos de horas de investigación y decenas de entrevistas revelan nuevos ideas y detalles sobre los dos candidatos – y nuestra decisión este noviembre.

In "The Choice 2012," acclaimed FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk ("Money, Power and Wall Street," "Top Secret America") documents the places, people and decisive moments that made the men who are competing for the presidency. Watch on air and online beginning October 9 at 9 pm ET on PBS.

In this preview from "The Choice 2012," airing tonight, FRONTLINE explores how Mitt Romney and Barack Obama's early public failures could have ended their political careers. Instead, both candidates went on to learn from their losses – lessons that would help them both pursue the presidency.

In 1986, Mitt Romney was two years into his tenure at Bain Capital and starting to feel the pressure. His partners had invested millions to help launch the firm, and while Bain had made a few modest deals, it had yet to hit its stride. That all changed when a former supermarket executive went to Romney with a pitch for an office supplies chain called Staples.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have crafted their campaign narratives, telling you who they are, what they've done, and how they wouldlead America. But there’s more to their stories.On October 9 acclaimed FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk presents The Choice 2012, a two-hour documentary that journeys into the places, people and decisive moments that made the men who are competing for the presidency.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent millions of dollars to tell their own stories. FRONTLINE’s top political reporting team spent the last year gathering the rest of the story. More than 100 interviews with those who know the men best contribute to the most ambitious television biographies of the candidates ever created. "The Choice 2012" debuts Oct. 9 on PBS (check local listings).