Obama vs. Romney Round II

Democrats across American have breathed a collective sigh of relief today after Obama’s excellent performance in last night’s debate.

The debate was in a very different setting to the first one. The debate is supposed to be like a town hall meeting with the candidates answering questions from an audience of un-decided voters. The questions asked ranged from the economy to women’s rights as well as education and foreign policy.

It did not take long for Romney and Obama to have some serious clashes. The first was on the issue of energy, Romney claimed that Obama had cut permits in half for oil companies to drill on public land and that production was down across public land. This is simply not true, production has increased on public land during the Obama administration. When asked what Romney would do to stop the perpetual rise in oil prices he said he would drill anywhere and everywhere regardless of the consequences. This wouldn’t necessarily work, oil prices are very high at the moment but so are the production numbers. The main reason for the high price, despite the high production rates is because of global demand. Countries like China, India and Brazil are growing very fast and need more energy to fuel that growth. The result is that the rising supply is being out-paced by the sky-rocketing demand.

Immigration has been a hard fought issue for many years now, considering the fact that it’s never been resolved it had to come up at some point. Again Romney decided to sputter nonsense when he spoke about how self-deportation was the answer to the immigration crisis. Romney argued that green cards should be handed to graduates from other countries to get the educated to move to the United States. This was very bizarre considering earlier in the evening he had mentioned the fact that 50% of new graduates were unemployed. Obama was much stronger on this area, he spoke of his support for the Dream Act (which Romney said he would veto if President) as well as making sure that all criminals were deported. He criticised Romney’s support for the highly controversial Arizona ‘papers please’ law; Obama specifically referenced the time when Romney said it was a “model for the nation”. Later Romney replied to that accusation claiming that he was only referencing to the e-verify portion of the law, despite the tape clearly showing Obama to be correct.

By far the question I was most shocked about coming up was the gun laws question. I was genuinely in shock, gun laws are only really considered by the fringes of the Democratic Party and never get a mention on the national stage. Despite the exceedingly high rate of gun violence in the United States it is simply not an issue with voters! Obama’s answer was probably not popular with a majority of Americans, he said that he would support an assault weapons ban. He said he believed that guns that were designed for soldiers should not be on the streets. Obama also said that better education and a change in society would help bring down violence. Romney, on the other hand, rejected the idea of an assault weapons ban, which is a change from his position whilst governor of Massachusetts. Whilst governor he signed a state-wide assault weapons ban into law! Romney then went on to talk about how making sure every child has two parents will help reduce gun violence… Yes, he genuinely said that! He basically accused single parents of being the reason for gun violence in the United States!

The next post discusses the economy.

Their performance in the debates has been described in the
media and press as "two alpha males" who were
"attempting to circle each other and intimidate each other"!