The third and final presidential debate came to a closebringing little clarity to a long and confusing campaign. Those who wereundecided are likely to be still in the dark after 90 minutes in which it wassometimes difficult to tell what the topic under discussion actually was.
What is clear is that President Barack Obama came preparedto fight. He was combative and assertive, frequently interrupting his opponent,at times seeming openly scornful of Mitt Romney’s statements. “Nothing GovernorRomney just said is true,” Obama said at one point, showing the kind of mettlethat was so conspicuously absent from his first debate performance in Denver.Obama sought to paint his opponent as inexperienced and reckless. He pointed tosome of Romney’s gaffes on foreign policy, such as on Libya, where he opposedintervention, on Iraq, where he wanted to leave troops after the withdrawal,and on Afghanistan, where he could not seem to offer a clear position on thetroop drawdown.
“Every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong,”said the president. Romney’s statement in March that “Russia is withoutquestion our number one geopolitical foe” was treated with scorn. “The 1980sare now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, theCold War’s been over for 20 years,” said Obama.
On actual foreign policy topics, however, Romney was at abit of a loss. He has little quarrel with the president on substantive issues.The two traded jabs on China, but in general the former Massachusetts governorwas more in agreement with the White House than in opposition to it. Romneyrepeatedly tried to bring attention back to where he perceives his strength tobe: the economy. Time and again he emphasized that the economy was the majorfactor holding America back. The president pointed to areas of progress, andtried to tie Romney to past unpopular policies “He’s praised George Bush as agood economic steward and Dick Cheney as somebody who shows great wisdom andjudgment. And taking us back to those kinds of strategies that got us into thismess are not the way that we are going to maintain leadership in the 21stcentury” said Obama.
Obama also rejected Romney’s charge that the White House wasintent on eviscerating the military. "You mentioned that we have fewerships than we did in 1916,” he said. “Well, Governor, we also have fewer horsesand bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed.” CNN released itsfirst survey within an hour of the end of the debate. In what they called “ascientific poll of debate watchers,” 48 percent gave Obama the victory, asopposed to 40 percent for Romney. Over the next few days, pollsters will weighmore fully the debate’s effect on the voting public. Judging by Boca Raton, theneedle will not move greatly. The race will be a nail-biter right down toNovember 6.
