Presidential Debate

The Presidential debate on 10/16/12 was one to remember. Not only did President Obama come back from an awful performance against Mitt Romney on 10/3/12, but Obama arguably had his best debate performance ever. He was attentive, knew what he was talking about, and corrected Etch-a-Sketch Mitt on many occasions, one of which was before he even finished the sentence. Romney became flustered at points, he knew Obama brought his A-game today, this debate was not going to be as easy as the first.

They hit environmental issues early, with the second question being "Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating it’s not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department?" Obama responded by saying that the department focuses on meeting the energy needs of the country. We have the highest amount of gas drilling in sixteen years, we have more natural gas plants than ever before, and we are also working on wind, solar, and biofuels to help power America. Obama said that we have lowered our oil imports to a record low level, but didn't quite answer the question about lowering gas prices.

Romney rebutted by saying that under the Obama administration, the number of licenses for drilling have been cut in half. He also said that as president he will get America self sufficient in terms of energy. He will make sure there is funding for solar wind, renewable sources as well as coal, oil, and natural gas. To this Obama said that Romeny had once said as governor of Massachusetts in front of a coal plant and said "This plant kills?" and that now he's flip flopped to Mr. Big Coal.

It is clear that these two candidates can never agree on anything, even if what they both claim to believe in are the same things. After Obama finished talking, the two just kept speaking into their microphones until Candy Crowley finally had them stop and move onto the next question. Nobody knows for certain who will be the next President at this point but we all have a very strange next four years to look forward to.