Saturday, February 4, 2012

The South Carolina Debate - My Personal Opinion


As a Republican who will vote in the upcoming primaries, I found that Ron Paul was very much in the background for the entire debate and the other candidates made their stand. I noticed all exchanges between candidates were between the other three on the stage. I also noticed that Newt Gingrich does very well at not only defending himself from questions, but throwing them right back at the moderator and making it look like he is right and the moderator is wrong.

The candidates spent some time talking about each other, but they also spoke about the policy wrongdoings of President Obama, which I thought was a good idea. I did not want to hear them attack each other the entire night, which they did not do. The questions were framed more so about the economy and jobs, which I think everyone can agree this was a good direction to go in, because most Americans are concerned with that at the moment.

Personally as a voter, I felt that each of the candidates spoke about what voters wanted to hear. I think that John King spent more time on the minor campaign minutia, than the candidates. When asked a question, some of them gave a few round about answers, but when a policy perspective was presented, they specifically said what they did not like about it and why it was wrong, or they were able to offer an alternative policy. I think those two things are the most important parts of debates, from a voter’s perspective. That is the real substance voter’s need to influence their choices, rather than talking points and commercials.



Ian Foley
Political Science & Communications Studies
Wilkes 2014

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