Third Presidential Debate: Who Won?

So the candidates have had their third and final presidential debate the other day.

I have to admit, I didn't watch the whole debate, so take my comments with that under consideration.

The debate, as I thought it would be, was a bit of a snooze-fest.

It's not surprising that it was for a variety of factors:

• Criticizing foreign policy in large part entails criticizing the military, CIA and military industrial complex (something neither candidate wants to do)
• Both candidates essentially have the same foreign policy, which is basically to keep mucking about in the middle east and nation building in the name of exporting Democracy
• To genuinely criticize Obama means to also criticize Bush's policies, since they are essentially identical (Romney would consider that to be far to messy and risky to do)
• Romney is not going to criticize Obama on things like the NDAA and wire tapping American citizens because he himself wants those powers should he win

So essentially this debate came down to two candidates with the same views and positions debating what? Essentially it comes down to debating semantics - the best way to articulate the same position. 

So having said that, who won the debate? Pundits are saying Obama won because he got a few good one-liners in. I suppose he did. But in many regards Romney won also. 

The biggest criticisms against Romney on foreign policy is that he sticks his foot in his mouth a lot. So last night was his opportunity to show that he can talk foreign policy and not mess up. With that in mind, he was successful. 

Most voters aren't going to vote based on foreign policy, remember this election is about jobs. However, foreign policy can come to the forefront should a candidate show himself to be woefully incompetent. Hence for Obama to truly win, he had to show that Romney was not fit to be Commander in Chief, and on that front he did not success.

So while Obama definitely won on style and one can correctly state that he won the debate itself, in terms of its impact on the election I think this was  draw. If anything, Romney may have won in that regard as he established that he's well prepared for foreign policy issues. 

So where do things stand now?

So the race appears to be neck-and-neck going in to the final two weeks.  

I felt the debates would determine this race and in many ways they have. Prior to the debates Obama had a sizeable lead on Romney. After the three debates the two candidates are tied in a dead-heat in most polls.  I rate the three debates as such:

Debate One: Romney wins decisevely

Debate Two: Basically a draw

Debate Three: Basically a draw 

Obama's inability to give Romney a good beating in the debates is what let Romney back in this race. 

I don't think there's enough momentum on either side to project a winner at this point, but I will say right now I'd give Romney a slight edge - perhaps a 55 per cent chance he wins. 

The reason I say this is that I still think this election will come down to jobs and on that front I don't think Obama can beat Romney. 

In addition, we are seeing severe weakness in the stock market the past week. In just the past five days the markets are down 3.2 per cent (the DOW has gone down 432 points). 

And we are just beginning to see the start of the market decline as companies report quarterly earnings and every day more and more and missing targets to the down side. In addition, companies are already starting to lay people off (DuPont announced 1,500 layoffs today).  

Point is, with the economy a mess and the markets starting to decline, Obama needed to convince voters that Romney was an unacceptable candidate (the more evil of two evils if you will). He has failed to do that. 

Romney avoided self destructing and Obama failed to cut his legs out from under him, as such, I think the odds favour Romney at this point.

Over the next two weeks it will be a combination of media ads and real-world events unfolding that will most likely sway people one way or another. This is bad news for Obama since nothing tremendously positive is going to happen and if the markets keep declining we could see a bit of panic set in right in time for the election.  

A real foreign policy debate

Just a final note regarding the debate last night - which in fact was not so much a debate as a conversation over foreign policy. 

It would have been a thousand times more interesting to see someone like Ron Paul in a debate like this because he actually has views that differ from the two candidates. Now THAT would have been a true debate (and one I would personally have enjoyed as I'm not big on war myself, unless it is absolutely necessary).