Current Events Hack of the Week: President Obama

Debate season is always a good time of year. I decided weeks ago that I would write this current events blog about the first presidential debate on the 3rd of October. Going into this week, Romney had lost a lot of steam on his campaign and many people, including myself, thought this debate would kill him. Obama has always been very good at public speaking and debates. He is particularly good at his pathos and ethos appeals when making a speech. From what I saw from Romney in the primary debates, I was sure that Obama would crush him. Well as usual, I was very wrong.

I don’t think the night could have gone much better for Romney. He spoke PRETTY good and was able to hold his own against the President. But I think his success was as equal as Obama’s failure in the debate. From just basic body language, it was clear that Obama was not as enthusiastic about the debate and that showed in his responses. Romney was able to dictate the tone and throw the punches during the debate while Obama was barely able to defend himself. Obama never really threw any big hits that Romney couldn’t return. It was interesting to see the ethos aspect of this debate as well. An incumbent president SHOULD have a clear advantage in the ethos department when going into a debate like this, but there were various points throughout the debate where I felt as though Obama did not know the specifics of economic issues or plans (or Romney’s plan to fix the economy) while Romney was able to sit back and jab at the specific “failures” of Obama’s economic policy over the last four years.

All over the spectrum of the media, left to right, agree that Romney outhit Obama all night in the debate and that Obama did not do nearly as well as expected. For those who do not know much about the economic plans and strategies of either Romney or Obama and watched the debate to see, it was clear that Romney presented his side very well while discrediting Obama’s record, and the Romney took this one hands down. To me, this debate showed that the Republicans put up the best candidate to steal Obama’s spot that they could.

Highlights From Debate

I wonder what will come of this for Romney. Historically, for reasons I am not sure, the challenger of an incumbent typically does well in the first debate between the two. Will Obama come back next debate swinging? What will come of it if he doesn’t? The next few weeks will be very interesting.

 

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