The third and final presidential debate between President Obama and Governor Romney dealt mainly with foreign policy, and experts agree that Obama’s experience while in office gave him the lead in this debate.
“Like in past presidential debates, the foreign policy format benefits the incumbent President, and President Obama reminded the audience he was Commander-in-Chief,” says Matt Barreto, principal at Latino Decisions and political science professor at the University of Washington. “Romney has no foreign policy experience, so he didn’t have the comfort level, and a grasp of the issues the way Obama could talk about them.”
Yesterday night, the final presidential debate before the election was held at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. The debate concentrated on foreign policy issues and the candidates concentrated much of their time on Syria, Iran, and China, while making a quick reference to Latin America.
The absence of discussion on Latin America may have bothered some Latinos, but supporters of Obama defend his policies in the region.
“[T]wo passing references to Latin America in a debate does not change the fundamentals of the President’s record on Latino America, no president has visited the region more times, in his first four years in office, exports are up more than 50%, we have new free trade agreements with Colombia, and Panama, and all of that is function of his leadership,” says Dan Restrepo, an Obama campaign spokesperson.
An impreMedia-Latino Decisions poll reveals that as of Monday, Latino voters are highly engaged in this presidential election, with 56% of Latinos ‘very enthusiastic’ about the election.
The poll also reveals that 71% of respondents were certain or likely to vote for Obama.
“Obama clearly came out on top, he has the knowledge to explain the context of the decisions he’s made,” says Stephen Nuno, NBC Latino contributor and Northern Arizona University political science professor. “Governor Romney could only speak more in generalizations.”
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