Obama won the third presidential debate. Romney lost. Obama actually persuaded me that he would be better than Romney at foreign policy. (Maybe because I don't follow foreign policy as closely, so there was more room to persuade me.)
My previous complaint against Obama was that he couldn't unilaterally co-operate with enemies like Russia or Iran. (Just like he couldn't unilateraly cooperate with Congressional Republicans.)
My complaint against Romney was that his "competitive" approach doesn't fix everything either.
During the debate, Obama persuaded me that he could cooperate with our allies (and undecideds) and then act together with the world to stop world enemies.
This approach is vastly superior to Romney's "Cowboy foreign policy" - have a GIANT American military, and then our enemies won't dare act up.
Romney said America should have immediately imposed stricter sanctions (unilaterally) against Iran to deter nuclear weapon development.
Obama said, "We could have done that immediately, but I was smarter to take the time to develop alliances and have world sanctions against Iran - which work better than super harsh sanctions from America only."
Romney wants to unilaterally have America give guns to rebels - Obama wants to work with international allies. Obama's way takes more time, but will probably have better long-term results.
Point to Obama.
Romney had a litany of how things are worse in the Middle East
Obama had a list of stuff he's accomplished.
I'm siding with Obama - there has been some progress (even Romney doesn't disagree.) But Romney seems to think that since Obama hasn't fixed EVERYTHING in the Middle East, Obama is bad on foreign policy.
So I guess the only way Romney would have been satisfied with Obama's foreign policy is if ALL the world's problems were fixed in 4 years?
The biggest charge against Obama's specific policies is that Obama projected "weakness." I'm pretty sure that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons...because Iran wants nuclear weapons.
I don't think Iran would have acted all peaceful, but since Obama went on an apology tour and met with "enemies" - that means Iran should make nuclear weapons now!
Romney: Attacking me is not an agenda.
Seriously? Romney, your "strategy" is just to point out everything that's wrong with the world and blame it on Obama's weakness.
I know what I'm getting with Obama - Obama doesn't need an agenda for the next 4 years. It's YOUR job to propose YOUR agenda, and show why YOURS will work better than Obama.
Military Romney said that Obama's military has the least boats since before WW2. Obama: "Yeah, but we also have less bayonets and horses!"
Point to Obama.
Romney really doesn't make a case for why we need more military spending than Obama wants. This played to my pre-existing bias, but Romney really doesn't have a way to spend the money - he just wants to spend it so our enemies will think "America is spending more military money- let's do what America says!"
There's no reason to think that will work. And it seems like a waste of (a lot) of money.
So with the debates over - I'll think some more about everything and post who I'll vote for and why, soon.
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