Obama – Romney: 2-1

Third debate between the candidates for the president of the United States – current head of the White House and the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney were, perhaps, the most interesting among all. They received a lot of attention. Three thousand journalists, a thousand of which represented international mass media, watched the debate on the screens at the Lynn University in Boca Raton in South of Florida. By the way, this university has been selected for a foreign policy debate because a quarter of all the students here are foreigners.

The moderator for this debate was a famous American journalist Bob Schieffer. It was his third presidential debate. Before, he held debate on the same issues between Barack Obama and John McCain, George W. Bush and John Kerry.

By the way, Kerry came out to journalists before the debate and said that his protege has experience in this area and his opponent Romney needs to present specific facts during the debate, rather than talking about some general things.

For his part, McCain, who was actually the only one of the leading Republicans who commented to nearly all TV channels on why Obama is a weak leader, talked about the failures of the current head of the White House in Libya, the Middle East, and that Iran under his leadership came closer to the creation of a nuclear bomb.

Obama and Romney discussed the following topics, chosen by Bob Schieffer: America’s role in the world, the longest running wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Red Lines – Israel and Iran, the Middle East changing and the new face of terrorism, which will consist of two parts or segments: the growth of China and the world tomorrow.

The incumbent managed to demonstrate that he knows the situation in international politics better and has relevant experience as a Commander in Chief. At the same time, Obama tried to show that Romney is thinking by categories of the past, saying that Russia is a geopolitical threat to the US and that for the current and future threats America needs to have more warships and aircrafts, the number of which is the lowest in the history of the USA under the rule of the current administration. To this Obama replied that the Army now has fewer horses and bayonets because today’s threats have changed and that now they have to look for different solutions. This phrase – “fewer horses and bayonets” became very popular on the Internet.

Romney had to defend more. He even asked several times not to attack his record, but to tell what his opponent was going to do instead. Once, the ex-governor, whose main appeal was that the United States should be strong so that the world recognized their leadership and China did not question the military might of America and played by the rules, which is the reason for increasing the navy forces.

Once Romney got applause from the audience of journalists when he said that he would not be flexible with Putin, unlike Obama, who said this with microphones switched off at a nuclear summit in Seoul. It seems that Romney’s attack on Obama, when he accused his opponent of not visiting Israel on his “apology tour” to the Middle East, failed. The president responded to that: “When I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn’t take donors. I didn’t attend fundraisers. I went to the Holocaust museum there to remind myself of the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable.”

The Head of the White House reflected the attack of the ex-governor on the weak leadership in the Middle East and on Iran, which, according to Romney, got four years closer to the development of nuclear weapons. In particular, he noted that he was able to enlist the support of the international community on Syria, demanding the resignation of Assad, and on applying stricter sanctions against Iran, which have been effective.

Romney said that he has an even tougher plan for introducing sanctions on Iran and his position on Syria is almost the same.

Obama also accused Romney of inconsistency on Iraq, in particular, he said that his opponent now supports the withdrawal of American troops from the country by the end of 2014, even though earlier he talked about sending more troops there. Besides, Romney could not explain where he would take the funds for the construction of ships with the reduction of the budget by five trillion dollars.

For his part, Obama said that in this situation the country has to make a smart choice to be more competitive in the world, and it means more financing for education, retraining of workers, bringing jobs back to America, and developing new renewable energy sources.

By the way, in the part about the policy toward China, where the positions of both candidates were similar, Obama proved that during his presidency the trade rates with the Celestial Empire have doubled.

Often the candidates deviated from foreign policy issues to economy and made their well-known statements. Romney, in particular, stated that he, as a businessman with 23 years of experience, knows how to get the country back on track, how to create 12 million jobs, and how to balance the budget.

It should be noted that after the debate, all the senators and congressmen who were present at the debate came to journalists holding signs with their names. Republicans argued that their candidate won the debate. Senator Marco Rubio said this to journalists. He said that the comparison with horses and bayonets was insulting, because the discussion was on how to effectively conduct policy toward China. On the other hand, he stressed the importance of the Romney’s position on the need to promote trade with Latin America, which is equal in volume to that with China. Meanwhile, Senator Richard Durbin was convinced that Obama won the debate and that he was especially accurate when he spoke about his visit to the Holocaust Museum as a candidate, while his opponent participated in some fundraising campaign there.

Currently, according to a survey of American TV channel CNN, Obama won these debates: 48 percent of the respondents are in his favor, and 40 percent preferred Romney. This means that the account of the debate is now 2-1. Now it is a big question whether the ex-governor will be able to receive a few percent lead and have the overall victory. The analysts say that the foreign policy is not decisive in this election campaign. Economy is the main thing for Americans. According to this factor – the ability to manage economy, Romney has had the lead. But in American electoral system a few percent advantage does not mean the victory in the elections. Now a lot depends on what will be the results in 11 states, where none of the candidates has obvious advantage. That is why, a lot will depend now on whether any of them will make a mistake, but according to the history, a Democrat president has actually never lost the election.