Last week, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, participated in the first presidential debate of this year — discussing issues including health care, taxes and public television.
The debate became a game-changer of sorts. After the debate, the polls swung to Romney’s favor, closing the five-point lead Obama held beforehand.
Whether or not everyone at Leesville can vote, many of us have opinions, including Davis Raynor and Nico Buico, two sophomores.
Both Raynor and Buico watched the debate, and both seem to possess differing opinions on the issues covered — Buico tending to favor Romney, and Raynor, Obama.
When speaking of the deficit, Buico completely agreed with one of Romney’s statements in particular: The government doesn’t need to bring in more revenue, it needs to make more cuts.
“Rather than making government bigger and bringing more money from the people to the government… we make spending cuts to the government, make the government smaller, [and] give the money back to the people,” said Buico.
Buico also believes Obama had the tendency to contradict himself during the debate, saying some things he had previously spoken different about. Buico sees this as a setback for Obama’s campaign.
“[Obama] didn’t come out strong, or as strong as he should be, coming back for reelection,” Buico said.
Buico makes a good point — while watching the debate, it was clear Romney was on the offensive, while Obama was rather passive. Despite this, Raynor is still assured in her support of the president.
“I feel like Romney just was beating it with a hose — he’s just bringing up the same points over and over,” said Raynor.
Raynor feels her belief in Obama’s eventual triumph was solidified after watching the debate, even with his somewhat criticized performance. She agrees strongly with Obama’s policies and disagrees equally as strongly with Romney’s. Obama’s stance on women’s and other social issues is much more in tune with what Raynor believes.
Though differing in their political views and debate responses, Raynor and Buico can agree on their personal reasons for watching the debate: to remain informed.
“When I start to vote, these are the people that are going to be in office — I need to know,” said Buico.
As the final month of campaigning begins, more debates will air, each evoking equally varying reactions from students and adults alike.
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