A Night in The Theatre

The third presidential debate was focused on National Security. Although this debate was not much of a game changer because important domestic economical issues are prioritized this year, the national security debate could have a relatively important effect in the public image of both candidates.

For Obama, being seen as firm-handed and decisive is crucial because he is sometimes perceived as weak in handling foreign relations. Obama’s economical policies towards China, nuclear reduction negotiations with Russia, and his ineffective sanctions on Iran are examples of overly feeble postures. Romney took advantage of this by forensically criticizing the president’s early actions in Iran, repeating the catch phrase “four years closer to a nuclear weapon” in regards to the Iranian nuclear program.

For Mitt Romney, the usage of future-tense deliberative arguments was essential because the audience was evaluating his ability as a commander in chief. It was important for Romney not to appear as a republican warmonger to detach himself from hawks like George Bush. Romney did this effectively by talking incessantly about peace, even attacking Obama from the left in saying that “we can’t kill our way out of this mess”.

Obama had a clear win in the Logos department of this debate. This can be easily explained because Obama is currently president and has to deal with national security issues on a very regular basis. Nevertheless, Mitt Romney was also on guard, being careful to be extremely clear in explaining his proposals in clutter-free lists, examples of this where his five simple steps fo r bettering the economy and his four essentials for development in the Middle East.

Both candidates used Pathos recurrently throughout the debate, as usually happens when discussing national security. 9/11, the Holocaust, and unemployed veterans were all pulled out. Obama made an extremely effective transition from ethos to pathos when, being incriminated by Romney of speaking negatively about America in the Middle East, he started talking about his visit to a genocide museum in Israel. Also, both candidates had a story in which a young woman approached them with consternation, an obvious attempt to persuade the audience by their emotions that could have backfired.

In this third debate, nothing was more important than Ethos. It is clear that the votes are going to be swayed by the economical policies presented by the candidates, so everything relating to national security goes to finding the candidate to be a sensible, trustworthy man who can excel as a commander in chief. In this aspect, I believe that Mitt Romney took the lead because he was able to portray himself as a moderate republican that will take conscious decisions. Obama, well, he was very constricted by the actual decisions he had taken in office.