Second Presidential Debate, an Aggressive Rematch.

By: Daniela Rivas Chavarría
PenPol
An aggressive rematch
October 17, 2012

Yesterday evening was the second presidential debate of the United States of America, between the two candidates, President Obama, and Governor Romney. They discussed about different policies, regarding energy and the environment; gender equality; foreign affairs, and economic and trade.

In the news we will find that President Barack Obama attacked Governor Romney in different occasions. For instance, for paying lower tax rates than an average middle-class American, his record on women's pay, contraception and abortion, as well as, for holding investments in Chinese companies.

The governor made a mistake when attacking the president on the topic of Libya and the murder of the United State's ambassador. He wrongly accused the president of failing to call the killing an act of terror for days, then loudly challenging Obama's rejoinder that he had called it an act of terror almost immediately. Obama limited his answer to: "Get the transcript" 

What Mr. Romney was trying to attack President Obama with, was that the president was trying to cover up security blunders at best, without concealing chaos in  Libya that exposed the American policy in the Arab world. Obama was very upset with this accusation, and snapped at the governor saying that that was not the attitude nor the decisions that had been taken in the matter. 

In the matter of taxes, the governor proposed a policy of lowering taxes. Which is contrary to the one held by Obama; which the president supported by saying that what the governor was planning to do, was exactly the same that was implied during the Bush administration, which led eventually to the worst recession since the Great Depression in 1929. Also, with information gained from a secretly-recorded comment from Romney to donors in May, he suggested that non-taxpayers thought themselves as victims owed a living by the government. Which President Obama flipped the coin and accused him of insulting pensioners, students and soldiers fighting overseas, who have special tax allowances. Romney couldn't defend himself, because they ran out of time. 

The biggest shot for Romney was to criticize President Obama in an economical matter, with an argument based on broken promises, and encouraging the viewers for a change. 

In the energy and environmental matter they centered the discussion in coal mining, and oil drilling. Mr. Romney, in my personal opinion, has no idea what the world we live in is suffering. His energy and environmental policy is to exploit the resources that they have NOW, to avoid dependency on other countries. While Obama has a more environmentalist policy, which reduces permits to factories that would damage the environment, and invests in renewing and improving technology in order to be able to exploit the resources today, thinking about tomorrow; which also saves the jobs for today and the future. 

I agree with the majority of CNN statistics (46% for Obama, and 39% for Romney) which say President Obama won the debate. I believe that his answers were well founded, and I think that Mr. Romney is wrong when he says that the next four years will be the same than the last four. I believe that in his second regime, Obama will actually feel more free and able to fulfill his plans for the United States of America, and will achieve much more than what he has done in his first period as President.