This is the third and last presidential debate of this election and it may very well decide the fate of either candidate. Does Romney have what it takes to discuss this issue despite his lack of experience? Can Obama adequately defend himself against the Benghazi fiasco? Watch the debate tonight at 6 pm PT or 9 pm ET and find out! If you don’t have cable TV, you can see it online for free at Fox News, Polico, and YouTube. We’ll be covering this debate live with commentary of our own so please stay tuned. If you have AIM, we’ll be having a group chat discussion that can be accessed by joining “Walking Christian”. Please join us as you are sure to have a blast with us 
The live commentary should be available below, but if you are viewing this post from the homepage, please click on the title of this post to view it.
5 Responses to Live Presidential Debate Coverage
Gio October 22, 2012
I’ll be checking in in between schoolwork. Should be fun to read your comments!
Lerrrr October 23, 2012
Well, this certainly wasn’t as interesting as the second debate, and I definitely don’t think I could say that either Obama or Romney won. I can’t honestly say that either looked stronger; I think Obama maintained the performance he gave last time, and Romney stepped up to match him.
The only points I can really make that I felt strongly about from this are:
1) I think it is a profoundly misguided view of Romney’s that America should be INCREASING it’s military budget. I think it is reflective of an attitude that I saw expressed by McCain in a speech recently where he said “he world doesn’t want less of America, it wants more”. I feel this is an attitude that is out of touch with today and that the President was right to liken this to the Cold War foreign policy of the 80′s. The reality is that more and more people and countries in the world today do NOT want America as a “leader”. They want America to see itself as a nation among equals, rather than a leader. This is coming from somebody who is not American and who has visited many countries outside of America. There was a time (in the 80′s) where America’s radical increases in military spending were seen as a positive thing. That time has passed, and at this point many nations in the developed world are in fact growing mistrustful of America’s desire to remain so OVERWHELMINGLY dominant militarily. I haven’t even gotten to the hypocrisy of criticising the president for overspending while yourself proposing massive increases in spending for a military which (as Obama pointed out) is already larger than the next 10 nations combined. However I think that hypocrisy speaks for itself.
2) I took personal issue with a statement Obama made that America “remains the world’s one indispensable nation”. I greatly beg to differ, Mr President, and I am surprised to hear you say something which I would actually have expected Romney to say. I give Romney credit for appearing more humble in this regard. It is a great pet peeve of mine when America tries to claim credit for philosophical ideas relating to freedom, economics and equality etc. – ideas which they in fact inherited from European scholars who had been discussing and formulating them in some cases for several hundred years before America became a country. It is similarly a great pet peeve of mine when American politicians describe America as having more significant, important or unique than other nations. It is not; you can visit many countries in the developed world where you will enjoy the same levels of prosperity, freedom and equality as America (in some cases more so). Please, Mr President, recognise your nations PLACE in history as a great country – one of many great countries – who have contributed much to the world, and also RECEIVED much from the world.
3) I still have an issue with Romney’s proposed tax cuts and his major avoidance of discussing specifics of how he intends to pay for them. Yes, Obama’s figure of $5 trillion is only half accurate; this figure is rounded up from $4.8 trillion which is itself an extrapolation of the cumulative effect of Romney’s proposed cuts over 10 years (I think the figure for one year is closer to $460 billion). But still, combined with the increased military spending this needs to be accounted for, and with no further debates and very little time to the election I still have not seen anything much clearer than the cutting of unspecified tax deductions and loopholes as a suggestion of how he would make up the lost revenue.
4) I think elements of both candidates tactics mutually failed; I think Obama was more aggressive than Romney and at times this came across as rude. However I think Romney’s attempts to counter this by playing the innocent “attacking me is not setting out an agenda” card when he has attacked Obama equally even in this same debate, failed as a counter-attack.
5) I was not surprised that there was a big focus on the Middle-East, but a little surprised at the extent to which this dominated the debate with relatively little mention of China, Europe, Australia etc.
6) I was quite surprised by the extent to which Romney seemed to agree with many aspects of Obama’s foreign policy; in fact I felt (and have seen others say as well) that in many areas Romney’s own policy seemed to be to simply do MORE of what Obama himself has done.
7) Obama’s retort about also having fewer bayonets and horses genuinely owned Romney, in my opinion. I actually laughed out loud when he said that, and it does stem from an important (and true) point that the nature of warfare has changed a great deal since 1917. Military strategists have universally accepted that the focus for navies shifted away from battleships to carriers (and eventually also to nuclear subs in the 80′s) at LEAST as early as the first World War, but certainly by the end of the second. America has 11 aircraft carriers, and it’s Nimitz class supercarriers are the biggest and most advanced carriers the world has ever seen. China has just put into service their first carrier…..and it is a refurbished Soviet model it bought from the Ukraine. I really don’t think your navy is in great peril just yet, Romney.
I’ll be very surprised if this debate has a great effect on things, there was so little between them. Ultimately it did not sway my opinion; I still lean more towards Obama for the reasons I stated in the last debate thread. I don’t want to call it in this debate, or the election as a whole. I really think it could go either way, and honestly just hope that WHOEVER wins they don’t screw up because the repercussions in the age of globalisation we live in will undoubtedly be felt far beyond America.
Justin October 23, 2012
You need to write a book or something.
Justin October 23, 2012
Anyway, as far as the debate does, Romney didn’t look as strong as he did in the last two debates in my opinion. He contradicted himself several times(for example, his “you can’t kill yourself out of this problem”… But a minute or so later claiming we needed to kill the bad guys). Otherwise, I agree with all your points. Here’s a video you should check out(excuse the language):
Robert October 23, 2012
There will be a third-party candidate debate tonight (October 23) at 9pm EST. You can watch it here: http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN/