By: Dustin B.
In the most recent debate, both of them were even more
aggressive than they had previously been, whether to get points across or
solely for the fact that they don’t get along well. It makes you really start
to wonder, is it necessary to debate this strongly, or could it been done in a
civil manner?
Along with various other things said during the second
debate, Romney even accused the president of misleading voters about the
terrorist attack on the US mission in Libya.
This of course, greatly offended Obama. He responded strongly by basically
saying how dare you. To quote him
directly, he said “The suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the
secretary of state, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics
or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive, that's not
what we do. That's not what I do as president, that's not what I do as
commander in chief."
Obama has not often been as aggressive as he was the other
night, whether being that he had taken notice of the aggressive way that vice
president Joe Biden does things, or that he simply felt the need to step things
up. He showed everyone that when necessary, he really can be aggressive.
The majority of the debate consisted of the two firing
things back and forth between each other. Soon after the debate started, Obama
cleanly attacked Romney over his opposition to the bailout of Chrysler and
General Motors. To which Romney felt the need to retaliate, instead of simply
moving on. "He said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt,"
Romney said. "And that's right. My plan was to have the company go through
bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy's and Continental airlines come out
stronger."
So, instead of just letting it go, and accepting that Obama
had gotten the upper hand on him and moving on, he continued to make himself
look foolish in the eyes of many.
Near
the end of the night, Romney said "I care about 100% of the American
people; I want 100% of the American people to have a bright and prosperous
future." While Obama, had not mentioned the 47% comments all night. But
Romney had decided to give him a reminder.
Although I myself am not legally able to vote until soon
after our presidential election, I still feel that it is necessary to be
knowledgeable about the candidates. And to those that are able to vote, to
choose what they believe in and to do so. Meaning that when you go to vote,
remember all that you know about the candidates, and who you think will be the
best for our country.
I definitely agree that there is increase tension between the candidates! I was not able to watch the previous presidential debate, I was able to watch a few of the separate clips and they were extreme! I think the debates are important because they show the personalities of both candidates and more importantly, their views. I do think it becomes too extreme at times though. When the debates turn into petty fights and disagreements, it just makes both candidates look immature and childish.
ReplyDeleteGood post Dustin! I really agree with the fact that the two candidates are really starting to get at each other on specific topics which is actually really cool to see as a viewer! When you talked about the Romney saying he cared about 100% of America comment I really thought it was interesting how Obama saved his 47% comment for the end of the debate rather than hammering at it time and time again. I give this round to Obama leveling the score 1-1 in the debates so far! Obama showed he can go on the offensive as well as back up his points as he went at Romney time and time again. Romney tried to defend himself as best as he could but overall Obama proved that he had the upper hand on Romney for the night. It will be nice to see how everything plays out in the foreign affairs debate!
ReplyDeleteWhile I haven’t seen any of the debates so far, I can get an idea of how the debates are going based on the reactions from other people. It sounds like that the two candidates are arguing to make their opponent look bad and have the people think that their ideas are the right ones instead of finding any agreements and working together. If I were able to vote in this election, I wouldn’t vote for either person.
ReplyDeleteThe tension that is building between the two candidates is extremely evident. This is my personal opinion, but I believe Obama really wanted to catch up from the big loss in the first debate, so he was on the attack constantly. Romney clearly wanted to keep the attack and the momentum, so he was getting defensive as well and making comments to try and make his point stronger. I thought Obama was almost disrespectful when he would constantly be interrupting Romney, but that is just politics. The debates are held to persuade people to vote for candidates. But currently it is only about proving who won what, not who is presenting what topic and who is the best for leading our country.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that there is a lot of tension built up between both of the candiates. You could especially see this during the debates, obviously Romney was being the agressive one during the first debate, and they were both rather agressive during the second. But what I found the most intersting was the third and fianl debate, both candidates were more calm and collective and especially you could tell the Romney was spending less time attacking president Obama, and he spend most of his time actually telling his strategies, while Obama still stuck to bashing Romney. You could see this as many things but I see it as president obama being scared becuase he knows Romeny is a very serious threat to his seat in the oval office, And he is trying to scare people away from voting for Romney.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anthony's previous post, the candidates sort of went through phases during the presidential race; flipping between aggressively attacking the other and calmly talking about what they would do for our country. Maybe I'm just a little paranoid, but unfortunately it's hard to believe most of the things the politicians say because they're just trying to acquire voters. Obama obviously sees Romney as a threat, and the fact that Obama hasn't done as much in the past 4 years as Americans would have hoped puts him at a small disadvantage. All one can really do is wait and see what the candidate will do with the power, not what they say they'll do.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Abby and Anthony's previouse comments. This campain has been a very interesting one, as the debates have been very high packed and intense as Dustin wrote. Because this race has been so neck and neck so far and from debate to debate the leaders in the polls have switched, I think especially in this election the candidates feel very threated by one another. For this reason they attack each other aggresively during debates. I think because Romney was so aggresive the first debate, Obama defenitly felt as if he needed to make up for his passive-aggressive attitude for the second debate.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of this. These two candidates have been more against one another than most candidates have been in the past, with such opposite views it is easy to understand why the both of them had felt that way. Seeing now how the election ended with both of them being very close in the winning and losing of the election. It just shows that both candidates have very strong points of view and have a lot of support on each of their sides.
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