The is a thread covering The Third Presidential Debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida on Monday night, October 22nd, 2012. The first debate saw Governor Romney a near consensus winner in post-debate polls and commentary. Some would argue about how credible Romney's statements were in that debate, but few could deny that he was the debate "winner." The second debate's returns aren't in, with this post being made a short time after its end, so I can only give my opinion at the moment, without solid information backing my opinion up, but I think the President clearly won that contest. Time will tell us who's a clear winner in the eyes of the public and the media, and whether my opinion has legs, but one thing is certain. The third debate will be critical. So how about it, folks? What sort of debate do you expect next Monday night? What change of tactics do you see, if any? Will the different format favor one candidate over another? Will the moderator have a significant impact, pro and con? There are a host of things to discuss. In other words, thoughts?
The third one is on foreign policy and the incumbent president usually knows more about foreign policy... Mitt is going in with a disadvantage from the start.
Not true. If Romney was smart he could focus on a few different areas. One, Obama's Afghan 'surge' was a failure. Two, his Syrian reply has been nonexistent. Three, Obama's support for Israel has been 99% there, not 100%. Four, well he probably won't mention this but Iraq seems to be diverting more and more to Iran (Obama's ability to secure more of a troop presence within the country failed...even though the number of security contractor have more than doubled since the withdrawal). Five, an opportunity to bring up Libya again. Obama will probably bring his trump card of killing OBL, which I think he has already overplayed, but that will still help.
Except that none of these things are politically popular in the least. You're arguing that he should run on expanding the Afghan war and putting more troops in Iraq? Suicidal.
Not supporting Israel is not popular. And misleading and lying to the American people is really what is not popular.
Not supporting israel is not the same as supporting extreme racist douches like Netanyahu . But yes im sure an Iran war will prove popular- your judgment is flawless as usual Joe
Obama should call Netanyahu a racist at the next debate, will go over well with voters. We need some other classification for a hostile nation other than full blown war. With cyber warfare and psy ops and drones, you can effect great damage without a massive build up or troop commitment. We don't have to police the world, but we could at least make life unpleasant for some of these dictators. We should be pumping in our own propaganda 24/7 ala Tokyo Rose.
The president has four years of the highest level of foreign policy expereince. Romney can run his mouth about we should be harder on this, go to war on that all he wants... all Obama has to do is step in and say "It ain't that easy bro".
At the end of the debate, was Romney saying "this government does not create private sector jobs" or , "the government does not...." It sounded like the latter to me, but that would go against everything he is running on.
With the third debate being about foreign policy, Obama can just do what Biden did. Biden got Ryan to admit: that Romney agrees with the timeline in Afghanistan. that Romney agrees with the sanctions on Iran that Romney agrees with not sending ground troops into Syria. Obama can press Romney and show that Romney wouldn't really do anything differently than Obama.
What Foreign Policy Debate? Obama and Romney both embrace reckless interventionism. Jacob Sullum | October 17, 2012 http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/17/what-foreign-policy-debate Next week Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are scheduled to meet for their third and final presidential debate, this time focusing on foreign policy. Although he will be on the ballot in at least 48 states on November 6, Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's nominee, was not invited, lest an actual debate about foreign policy break out. Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, believes that so-called defense spending should be used for defense, that the United States "should resort to military action as the last option and only as provided in the Constitution," and that our foreign policy should be "reoriented toward the protection of U.S. citizens and interests." Obama and Romney, by contrast, believe "it is the responsibility of our president to use America's great power to shape history," as Romney put it in a recent speech. During last week's vice presidential debate, Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, struggled mightily to distinguish the two major parties' foreign policies. He was reduced to squabbling with Vice President Joe Biden about how often Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and faulting the administration (over and over again) for describing Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad as a "reformer." Ryan's main message was that Romney would do basically what Obama is doing but with more "credibility." It was clear that on all the major foreign policy issues Ryan and Biden discussed—including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria—Obama and Romney have essentially the same positions. In a debate limited to Obama and Romney, you will not hear anyone question, as Johnson does, whether frustrating Iran's nuclear ambitions is worth launching yet another war in the Middle East. You will not hear anyone wonder, as Johnson does, whether occupying Afghanistan for 13 years was the only way to "make sure that the Taliban does not come back in and give Al Qaeda a safe haven," which is how Ryan described the aim of the longest war in American history. Biden did allow that as of next year "it is the responsibility of the Afghans to take care of their own security." What about Europe, Japan, and South Korea? That's the sort of question Johnson asks but Obama and Romney never will. Another Johnson theme neglected by the two major parties: The Constitution requires the president to obtain congressional approval before starting a war. Although Obama once thought that principle was pretty important, he changed his mind after he was elected president, unilaterally intervening in Libya's civil war. Romney main complaints at the time were that Obama did not do so sooner and that he rashly ruled out the use of ground forces. On the question of whether U.S. military action against Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi set a precedent for U.S. military action against Assad in Syria, Biden last week said no, because "it's a different country." Ryan agreed that "each situation will come up with its own set of circumstances." This is how unprincipled recklessness masquerades as prudence. Although neither Obama nor Romney currently supports direct military intervention in Syria, both favor arming "friends who share our values" (as Romney puts it) with help from proxies such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. How's that going? This week The New York Times reported that "most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists." Like Johnson, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) worries that "we are in too many places, too often, and we don't seem to even know the reason—or where we will end up when we're done." Instead of learning from foreign fiascos, Paul says in a recent CNN.com essay, "both parties rush headlong into more places they don't understand." For strategic, fiscal, and moral reasons, we desperately need an alternative to what Paul calls our "'act first, think later' foreign policy." Unfortunately, neither major party is offering one.
