During the third debate, it occurred to me that the candidates were… let’s say focused on certain areas. Apparently not just to me:
I think Europe did get a couple of mentions, to the extent that Turkey and the UK were mentioned as allies, but that was about it.
Did this bother anyone else? Should the candidates be a little less focused on Israel and China and maybe take the time to mention the rest of the world?
Its what the people want to hear.
Plus, taking a stance on the failing war against drugs in a lose-lose IMO
I don’t want them to talk about the war on drugs. I just thought it might be nice if they acknowledged the existence of countries we aren’t at war with once in a while.
Of course!
Look, there’s a reason the Middle East and North Africa gets a lot of coverage. We just had a big war there, there’s the Arab Spring, there’s Iran, there’s Israel, and these are all important foreign policy issues. Maybe even the most important (though I think the eurozone crisis and medium-term China policy are equally important).
But the candidates agree on how to respond there. Their biggest disagreement is whether to keep 10,000 troops in Iraq or not (and Mitt Romney isn’t even clear about that). We have no real idea how Mitt Romney would respond to the eurozone crisis or China’s aggressive policies in Asia.
Do most voters care? No. But they don’t care about most of what gets discussed. You think the average voter has a well-thought out position on energy policy or cares about the amount of oil exploration on public lands? Of course not, but we got all the details on those issues. If we’re going to talk over 80% of the country, we might as well be talking about the stuff that actually matters.
I think I said to my friend just before the debate that it’ll be a race to see who could jerk off Israel. I wasn’t surprised. I was a bit sickened that Syria was presented as primarily an Israeli problem.
It may bother you but it does not matter; this is the path we are on. Israel is the only important country in the Middle East. It is a function of our electorate. Our representives, by their very role, exemplify that. I am resigning myself to it. The chance we had to design a new Middle Eastern policy has passed.
Like maybe a mention about their biggest foreign trading partner. Or maybe something about the country the US gets most of their energy from.
Naaaaaaa.
Obama: Things are going as well as can be expected.
Romney: I agree.
As if US debates are only substantial if there are quantitative shoutouts to homies.
That was covered in the domestic issues debate
Not really. Was that when Romney said that he wants to make North America energy independent? I have news for him - he does not set policy for other countries. And it would be pretty hard to divorce N. America from the global energy markets even if he could.