Third Presidential Debate

The third presidential debate was definitely won by President Barack Obama. This debate was extremely important in the race to the White House because it was the final time both candidates would have a national stage to debate the foreign policy differences they had. I felt that the candidates used this as an opportunity to show the different leadership styles they believed to be effective. Obama wanted to show the public that he had been a very successful leader of the military, whereas Romney tried to convince the public that Obama had not been as successful at the title of Commander in Chief as he was making everyone believe. Obama presented his information more forcefully than Romney did, and I believe that him actually having experience dealing with foreign policy was the edge he needed to boost his confidence going into this debate. From the very beginning of this debate, I believe that President Obama appeared much more together, organized, and composed than in the previous debates. Since he had actual examples of goals he had accomplished and could direct the public to actions he had taken when dealing with foreign policy, I believe this gave him confidence going into the debate that Romney lacked. That being said, I do not believe that Romney let Obama run him over throughout the debate. I believe he did show some strengths and helped to show America he would be a good leader; however, when facing Obama who had actually led I think the mountain was just too hard for him to overcome. Obama, in his attempt to be more agressive, took stabs at Romney for things he had said in the past and was now changing his stance on, like the fact that Romney was quoted as saying Russia was a bigger geopolitical threat to America than al Qaeda, but that now he had retracted to agree that al Qaeda was indeed a threat. In response, Romney called Obama out about the fact that attacking him was not going to solve any problems the country faced when dealing with foreign policy. I feel that the personalities of each candidate were more apparent during this debate because I feel that they targeted jabs at each other and were able to show the public their competitive sides, while still proving that they would both make strong, capable leaders of our nation's military forces and were both capable of making good decisions while dealing with our foreign policy.