Barack Obama and Mitt Romney entered the October 22nd
presidential debate with different objectives.
Obama needed to build upon the momentum from his last debate
victory. Romney had to convince voters
he is qualified to serve as Commander-in-chief.
Obama succeeded because he found his voice.
It was a reversal of the first debate where Obama was
professorial and pensive, while Romney appeared assertive and competent. In the third debate the Republican candidate was
the one with the "deer caught in the headlights" expression.
Obama prevailed because he bested the Republican on each
foreign policy issue. The first question
concerned Libya and Romney had a chance to blame the President for the deaths
of four Americans in Benghazi. Instead
he rambled. Obama countered with his
theme for the evening, "Governor Romney, I'm glad
that you agree that we have been successful in going after Al Qaida, but"your
strategy previously has been one that has been all over the map and is not
designed to keep Americans safe or to build on the opportunities that exist in
the Middle East."
Romney responded weakly and Obama pounced,
"I'm glad that you recognize that Al Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not Al Qaida" But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s."
Romney claimed that America's influence in the world had
diminished over the course of the Obama Administration. Again, the President attacked,
"Both at home and abroad, [Governor Romney] has proposed wrong and reckless policies. He's praised George Bush as a good economic steward and Dick Cheney as somebody who's -- who shows great wisdom and judgment. And taking us back to those kinds of strategies that got us into this mess are not the way that we are going to maintain leadership in the 21st century."
Moderator Schieffer asked Romney why he wanted a bigger military
and the Republican gave an example, "Our Navy is smaller now than at any time
since 1917." Obama responded with his
best line of the night,
" I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships. It's what are our capabilities. "
Romney
seemed to wilt after this exchange. A
few minutes later, the discussion turned to Iran and the Republican said the
Iranian leaders saw us as weak, "The president began what I have called an
apology tour, of going to various nations in the Middle East and criticizing
America. I think they looked at that and
saw weakness." Obama retorted, " Nothing Governor Romney just said is true, starting with this
notion of me apologizing. This has been probably the biggest whopper that's
been told during the course of this campaign." Before Romney could respond, the
President continued, "While we were coordinating an international coalition to
make sure [Iranian] sanctions were effective, you were still invested in a
Chinese state oil company that was doing business with the Iranian oil sector."
Romney sputtered Obama had made America weak. Obama responded, "Governor, the problem is
that on a whole range of issues, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's
Afghanistan, whether it's Iraq, whether it's now Iran, you've been all over the
map."
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