Tonight's final debate is supposed to be about foreign policy, but it wouldn't surprise me if Mitt Romney pivots to the economy as many times as he can. The incumbent always has the distinct advantage over his opponent when it comes to foreign policy. Mitt Romney is briefed on security matters, but he does not have privy to all the information a sitting president has.
I'm pretty sure the Benghazi incident will be revisited, but the New York Times story has brought Iran back into the spotlight. According to the story, it seems that Iran now wants to have a one- on- one discussion but the administration, and the Iranian representative denies the contents of that story. I believe the New York Times story because Iran has seen the value of its money drop 40% in the last two weeks, because of the economic sanctions. The Republicans are saying that the president should have done this long time ago when he had to be pushed by Congress before taking any action. That's certainly not true because it took a while to convince Europe and Russia to go along with the sanctions because it was against their economic interest. Dan Senor, a Romney foreign policy consultant, said the president should have backed the Green Revolution, and we would be in a stronger position than we are in today but that's coming from someone who advised President Bush to invade Iraq. Dan Senor insinuated that we should run any negotiations through Israel first, as if we are a subsidiary of Israel. I still think that we've been having back channel talks where both parties have walked away from the table but now the consequences of the tough sanctions have given us an upper hand in the negotiations.
Mitt Romney has criticized the president for not an arming the Syrian rebels, but if I were the moderator of tonight's debate, I would ask how far Romney would go. Would he establish a no-fly zone? Syria is located on the border of Iraq and Lebanon; could Romney ensure us that Islamic extremist would not get the arms intended for the Syrian rebels?
Mitt Romney said on day one, he would call out China for being a currency manipulator as all presidential candidates have in the past. China will have new government leaders pretty soon; and they will ask Romney if he's ready for a global trade war. As Jon Huntsman correctly pointed out; bellicose doesn't work with China.
Chris Wallace and Fox News must think that all intelligence reports go through them, before it goes to the president. I thought Chris Wallace, Britt Hume, and Senator Lindsey Graham's version of what happened in Benghazi is just pure partisan politics. They never mentioned, the Libyans, who helped us doing that tragedy nor the thousands who held signs condemning the actions of a few Islamic terrorists. They barely mentioned that the request for more security was for Tripoli not Benghazi. There're too many questions left unanswered, but they want their answers before the election.
It's funny how Mitt Romney and President Obama are right where this election started at 47% for each. The Democrats and Republicans are in their partisan corners waiting for the undecided to make up their minds. We now know that 2/3 of uncommitted are women. Mitt Romney has to win Ohio but if President Obama wins Ohio and Wisconsin and Nevada; he will be the 45th president of the United States.
I went down to cast my vote today, and the person next to me showed his driver's license but the poll worker informed him that it was not required. The man (a republican I presume) went on and on saying they should be required. I was going to refuse to show my driver's license if asked because I had my yellow voter-registration card. It didn't take me but a couple of minutes to vote straight party, verify, and push my selection with my stylus.
Go vote.