Overall, the general view on the outcome of Tuesday’s second presidential debate is that Pres. Obama dominated (to make up for his lackluster performance in the first debate), while Republican presidential candidate Gov. Romney kept his ground.
In the CNN/ORC International poll of 457 registered voters, it indicated that Pres. Obama won round 2 of the presidential debates (at 46 percent), compared to Romney’s 39 percent.
It also indicated that 73 percent believe that Obama’s performance exceeded expectations, while 37 percent said that Romney delivered better than what was expected.
“CNN’s telephone survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. 33 percent of participants identified themselves as Republicans and 33 percent as Democrats, according to the survey,” said Bloomberg News.
According to a CNN post-debate poll, Romney was 18 percentage points ahead of Obama on the question about economic policy, while Obama fared better at 49 percent over Romney’s 47 percent on foreign policy.
Also, 47 percent of respondents found Obama more “likeable,” compared to Romney’s 41 percent.
“In a CBS News/GfK poll of uncommitted voters after the debate, 37 percent said they thought Obama won compared with 30 percent for Romney, and 33 percent who called the match a draw. The survey of 525 people, with an error margin of 4 points, showed that 65 percent of respondents thought Romney would do a better job on the economy,” reported Bloomberg News further.
Going beyond the polls of the second debate, the Gallup Poll (Election 2012 Tracking) from October 12-18 showed that Gov. Romney still had a one percent advantage (at 48 percent) over Pres. Obama (at 47 percent).
Among likely voters, Romney is at 51 percent (with a -1 change), while Pres. Obama is at 45 percent.
On Friday, Rasmussen Reports’ daily presidential tracking poll showed Romney and Obama “both attracting 48 percent of voters nationwide, with 1 percent preferring some other candidate and another 2 percent undecided.”
But while “style and substance” are key in winning debates, facts still hold more weight. The debate covered a wide range of topics: education, jobs and unemployment, auto bailout, taxes, the economy and energy policies, to name a few.
The Associated Press did a fact check on some salient discussions during the debate, but this, perhaps, became the centerpiece of contention (between partisan media and even in social media).
One of the town hall attendees, Kerry Ladka asked Pres. Obama about reports indicating that the State Department “refused extra security for our embassy in Benghazi Libya, prior to the attacks that killed four Americans.” Ladka then proceeded to ask the President: “Who was it that denied enhanced security and why?”
The discussion became heated as Obama initially explained how he handled the situation after the Benghazi US Consulate “was being overrun,” then proceeded to lambast Romney for “turning a national security issue into a political issue” by putting out a press release and “trying to make political points.”
Romney responded by saying that “there were other issues associated with the tragedy,” citing that “there were many days that passed before we knew whether this was a spontaneous demonstration, or actually whether it was a terrorist attack.” He also noted that “there was no demonstration involved. It was a terrorist attack and it took a long time for that to be told to the American people.”
Romney then proceeded with his retort, saying that the day after the tragedy, the president himself was in Las Vegas for a political fundraiser and that he even went to Colorado the next day for another political event.
Crowley tossed a follow-up question (and fanned the flames even further), asking Obama “if the buck stops” with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who earlier said that she takes full responsibility for what happened in Benghazi), “as far as what went on.”
Obviously irked by the last remark given by Romney, Obama said that a day after last month’s attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, he made a speech at the Rose Garden saying that he told “the American people and the world” that his administration was “going to find out exactly what happened.” He also indicated that “this was an act of terror” and that the government is ” going to hunt down those who committed this crime.”
“The suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State, Our UN Ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor [Romney], is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as president, that’s not what I do as Commander-in-Chief.”
Addressing Crowley, Romney said that he wants to make sure that what the president said goes on record, “because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.”
Obama then asked Crowley to look at the transcript.
Crowley responded by saying that, Obama “did in fact” say that it was an “act of terror.” However, she also supported Romney’s claim that “it did take two weeks or so for the whole idea there, being a riot out there about this tape to come out.”
According to the fact check from AP, Obama was “correct in saying that he referred to Benghazi as an act of terrorism on September 12, the day after the attack.” Obama’s exact words at the Rose Garden were: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for…We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.”
However, AP also said that others in the Obama administration have been repeating, for several days, “that the violence stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam. It took almost a month before officials acknowledged that those protests never occurred. And Romney is right in arguing that the administration has yet to explain why it took so long for that correction to be made or how it came to believe that the attack evolved from an angry demonstration.”
Nationaljournal.com’s fact check gives a similar view: “The president did refer to ‘acts of terror’ when he delivered his first public remarks on the Sept. 11 deaths of 4 Americans at the US diplomatic facility in Benghazi. But Obama’s languate in his Sept. 12 Rose Garden statement was ambiguous. After speaking about the memory of 9/11, Obama called the incident in Benghazi ‘an attack.’…It wasn’t entirely clear from the President’s remarks whether he was classifying the assault on the Benghazi facility as an act of terror or whether he was making a more general observation.”
The subject of the Benghazi attack is still a glaringly sore and sensitive issue for Pres. Obama, and even with all the feisty exchanges between him and Romney, he still wasn’t able to come up with a substantial explanation regarding the lack of security during that time — just as Vice President Biden could not give a convincing and straightforward answer to a similar question tossed during the VP debate.
But aware of the opportunity to make a killing in his final statement (even though it digresses from the final question: What do you believe is the biggest misperception that the American people have about you as a man and a candidate?) Obama finally takes out the big guns and squeezes in the dreaded “47 percent who refuse personal responsibility” (taken from a video of Romney’s speech, behind closed doors) as his coup de gråce of the evening.
Which brings us to the issue of Candy Crowley’s neutrality as a moderator.
Was she fair, given that according to various media sources, she interrupted Romney 28 times, while interrupting Obama only 9 times, during the course of the debate?
Did Crowley dampen what would’ve been a powerful moment for Romney, by literally saying that the Obama uttered the words “acts of terror” in his speech, even if he did not categorically state that the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi was a “terrorist attack?”
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Crowley later justified her actions, saying that she thinks that Romney was right “in the main” but that he “just picked the wrong words.”
All contentions aside, the second presidential debate was definitely riveting to watch. With a victory apiece and the presidential elections only a few weeks away, expect the third one on Foreign Policy to be more explosive.
Meanwhile, allow us to reiterate that choosing a leader should go beyond the rhetoric. It is our responsibility as voters to be well-informed.
(AJPress)
