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I know that it may seem horrible for me to say, but I do not view Gay Rights as a "key issue." I am all for the protection of the rights of the LGBTQ community, but I would not say that it is one of the most important issues at the moment. I believe that homosexual equality is necessary in a perfect country, but I do not believe that it is more important than any of the other issues on that list. The Gay Rights movement has many supporters because there is a visible opposition, but I think that we should focus on the current state of our economy or the current state of our planet before we put a large amount of effort towards any social issue. Mind you, these are just my thoughts. I support the cause, but I would rather see Climate Change solved, first.

I'm not sure what I feel about the government investing. I don't think I know enough about this topic to weigh in.

I think that, like mentioned in the debate, their views on equal pay and hiring women can also play a huge role in who women vote for. Additionally, though, women are people: they have the same desire for a strong economy and a safe country just like men. I think that Obama's campaign probably appeals more to women as they are women, but Romney's campaign may appeal more to women as they are people.

Interesting point Sabrina and I agree. I'd like to add though that it's interesting how Obama is taking the comedian approach to these issues. At least from this article, I definitely took the event to sound like a place I would have been laughing a lot. I wonder if that is the best approach to handling the situation or if he would be more successful emphasizing the issues with a serious tone?

I agree with you that the most pressing issue of this election has been shifted, at the moment, away from the status and future of the economy to the pressing foreign affairs occurring within Libya and Egypt. These riots represent the beginning of an Anti-American movement sweeping through the Middle East and without proper care, the feelings toward the U.S could push the economy to drop even more. This is why I think the most pressing issue of the election has shifted from the economy to foreign policy.

Sabrina, I think for the many families struggling to put food on the table, yes their main concern is jobs. I'm still curious how Obama's track record will effect this election. I wonder if Romney will have somewhat of an advantage because he hasn't had some of the "failure" that Obama has with getting things done in congress. Do you think people are hopeful that Obama can fix the hold ups in Congress? This quote sums it up why some people think will happen again. "The president just cannot work with Congress to finally get the job done. He says he would. He said he would before and he didn't,"

Romney is a prime example of his religion shooting his logic in the face. He needs to start getting more libertarian or just accept that he needs to leave religion out of politics. If every child deserves a mother and a father, why do we allow single parents to adopt or single mothers to raise their children? I'm sure that you know more same-sex families up in Haight-Ashbury than I do down here in a conservative Atlanta neighborhood, and gay rights just seems so unquestionable, but it sickens me that I have friends that question gay rights, because 'it is against the bible'. For instance, I hosted a summer camp for young girls this summer and some parents were turned off by the fact that I invited a girl with two moms, even though the girl was super sweet and well-behaved. We even had a girl leave our school after coming out in 8th grade because of bullying and depression because of how intrinsically tied religion has become in this issue. I think that this is absolutely ridiculous and that gay marriage rights are completely constitutional. While it may be against the bible and Joseph Smith, it isn't against the constitution and people need to recognize that. In 40 years, they are going to look like white supremacists standing outside of voting booths and I hate that. This is one thing that I absolutely can't stand about the republican party.

To the republican party I wonder if Romney's religion is an issue or not? To me most republicans tend to be christian and Romney is not. I know that much of conservatives values are based on the christian religion. I mean I am not expert on christian or morman religion, but I assume that there are definitely differences. I also agree that Romney's opening quote on the site contradicts himself. HE NEEDS TO BE MORE CLEAR!

The quote on the top does seem contradictory and confuses me on what Romney actually believes. I'm with you Sabrina that his "every child deserves a father and mother" does not indicate if a child's home will be healthy and this isn't often realistic with divorce and what not. Sort of a side-note but I heard that the Common App used to have "mother" and "father" rather than "parent 1" and "parent 2" for the information section but it has changed in the past 5 years I think. For me, I don't understand why marriage can be controlled by the government in general.

In this article, Romney expresses views on energy that oppose actions he made towards conserving energy in the past as state Governor. This seems to go along with a theme of wishy-washyness of beliefs that Romney displays throughout his campaigning this election season. Do you think that his lack of faith in his "beliefs" he is campaigning for will affect his presidency if he wins the election?

I feel like in a way his lack of faith in his beliefs make him seem less confident and secure. The perception he is giving to the people is confusing because relating this to Abby's article about how he and Paul Ryan feel extremely confident in winning the election. This is problematic. The way I see him at least is not confident.

What Romney's wishy-washiness says to me is that he really, really wants to be president. His own ideals matter much less to him than picking the views that will appeal to the most voters. This could be seen as a good thing or a bad thing; he's either not faithful to anything, really, or he is willing to cater to the needs of the majority.

Romney's back and forth ideals also concern me Yadira. I want a president that is totally confident in his beliefs and doesn't sway. I don't think it has to do with him not being confident necessarily but I think it makes him look less trustworthy. I think this will make voters feel uneasy...

This article is about how Obama's target audience in his advertising is mainly blue-collar women (middle aged white women without education). It brought up two major questions for me: 1. how important is advertising? It seems to be most affective when criticizing the opposing candidate. 2. how important are women (specifically blue-collar women) in this election? How do women's rights tie into the swing votes/why are many GOP-leaning blue-collar women now leaning towards Obama?

I found this very interesting, I normally don't really think of what the midwest's demographic is, but to see that it is blue-collar white women is super interesting. I also think the connection between advertising and the women is really powerful. The ads they are showing are definitely working since much of Obama's supports are their targeted audience.

It's funny that they focus on such a specific group. This quote stood out to me: "Democrats say blue-collar women have been the principal, and most receptive, target for their extended ad barrage portraying Romney as a plutocrat who is blind, if not indifferent, to the struggles of average families." The ads all seem to be focused on saying how bad Romney will be for these women, rather than Obama helping them. How can they know that Obama is really right for them if all they know is that they don't like Romney?

I think it's ridiculous that Romney has "changed" his standpoint on abortion. To me it seems that changing your "pro-life/pro-choice" standpoint publicly is to win certain votes. I remember during Romney's RNC speech he brought up protecting the sanctity of life right after a huge applause and I'm sure everyone did not hear him. His wobbly shifts on his position on abortion is something that bothers me.

On one hand, creating jobs is an exceedingly difficult thing to do, and it's certainly not the only part of the campaign. On the other hand, if Obama specifically promised to lower unemployment by a certain amount, it's frustrating that he hasn't been able to. But you can't take that as the only fact in the question "are you better off than you were four years ago?".

This reminds me of the conversation we had in class the other day about fact-checking. It seems like the accessibility of media would make presidential candidates stick to a clear point of view rather than altering opinions depending on the audience. It doesn't seem like the media is stopping Romney from changing his story. I also was really bothered by this quote: "We're not going to round up people around the country and deport them". The language in that rubbed me the wrong way and it makes me feel that Romney isn't taking the uprooting of lives as seriously/respectfully as he should be.

Romney's idea of "self-deportation" seems ridiculous and unrealistic to me-maybe I just don't understand it enough. It seems like saying that people should go home but the government won't make them is the worst possible option; it doesn't welcome undocumented immigrants into the country nor does it remove them. It sounds like another example of Romney changing his message based on his audience.

I thought this article summarized pretty much how I felt about the debate. They both did a good job and were fairly evenly matched but in my opinion, Biden may have done just a tiny bit better. That being said the poll asking people who they thought won (taken of the people who watched the debate) confirmed my suspicion that many republican viewers thought Ryan did as well, if not better than Biden.

I thought Biden and Ryan's debate was completely different from the presidential debate. I know many democrats were disappointed in Obama's lack of critical response to Romney's points, arguing that he could have shot them all down easily and logically. Biden seemed to compensate for that completely, making Ryan seem like he didn't really know what he was talking about. What I thought was interesting about this debate, though, was that who won seems completely subjective based on personality equally if not more than policy. Many might thing Ryan won because Biden was laughing in a perhaps rude way the whole time, while many might think Biden won because he deserved to laugh at Ryan for saying things that didn't entirely make sense. I think this almost has more to do with personality preference than policy preference because in our debate chat room, where most of us were democrats, there were arguments both that the laughing was rude and that the laughing was called for, passionate, and helpful in Biden's claim. Overall, Biden's casualness was a great contrast to the formal, almost scripted attitude of Ryan. This is why the debate seems to be so varied in public response, and to me, why it depends on what the individual listener wants to hear to decide who really won the debate.

In my opinion, Biden won, but it certainly wasn't a runaway like it was for Romney. I agree with you all that they were pretty evenly matched, and that a lot of who won is based on who you already like. I don't think that this debate will have a significant impact on the election.

I believe that Biden won for his ability to: connect to the viewers, shoot down all of Ryan's ideas, and emphasize all of the good things that have happened under his and Obama's office. Like Sabrina said, however, Biden did not blow away the competition like Romney did to Obama, but he did seem to do better than Ryan. Also, like Sabrina said, this debate won't mean much to the voters even though they did raise some policy issues.

Personally, this debate did mean something to me as a voter. It did not make me want to change my position or anything, but it did boost my confidence in my already-made choices. I am wondering if this has become more of the reasoning behind these debates, or if they are still created to make people decide on who they are voting for?

The article says "Democrats are likely to look at the economy with rose-colored glasses because they want their candidate to win in November" which doesn't really address anything. If they believe that the economy is bad and that Obama isn't going to fix it, why are they going to vote for him? The article doesn't give any reasoning at all for why people would want to vote for Obama, just makes them seem crazy for wanting to do so. As for your questions, James, I think they did pick the best candidate at the time. I just think that Obama is a really remarkable politician and public speaker, whether you agree with him or not, and Romney can't compete with that. That, and many people really do believe that Obama is improving the economy.

I'm not seeing the true point of this article. I think the "rose-colored glasses" refer to people that will support Obama regardless of the campaign. I think that there are people who like what he has done and trust him so will vote for him regardless of the economic state right now...but is that hard to believe? Not really. He probably has some advantage from winning people's trust in the past 4 years.

Yeah I agree. I don't think the article went into enough detail with enough facts to convince me of anything. Of course people who support Obama and want him to win are going to see him in a better way then people supporting Romney. And I think depending which part of Obama you choose to focus on, there is a good and bad just like with the policies or actions of any other politician.

Sabrina, I disagree with you in just about nearly everything that you said. The economy is not getting better. He's put more long term damage on us than I thought imaginable 4 years ago. I don't think that he has helped our economy, and here is why: Yes, he did help save us from total collapse, but even then, it wasn't him, it was TARP, signed into law under Bush, which even permitted his actions as acceptable. Gas prices have raised by 1.30/gal and the amount of americans on food stamps has doubled. Sure, short-term unemployment is down from a couple of weeks ago, but the fact of the matter is that at this time in 2008 it was 13M, and it is now 22M. Yes, I understand that Obama has to deal with the Bush era's layover, but in 2016 he will have only improved this number slightly to 19M, not nearly enough to say that he is helping our economy. Under Obama, income inequality was greater than in 2008. Long term unemployment rates have doubled, which in my opinion, is a better indicater of long term well being. The big 5 made 48% of our GDP this year, compared to 32% in 2008, thanks to Dod Franklin. He's increasing middle class tax burden by about 3,000$ with the passing of Obamacare. ACA will increase our debt by 500M a year because it calls for 1T in funds, but only allows tax raises totalling half of that, causing our budget deficit to increase rapidly. At current rates, excluding the increases in deficit from ACA and others, in 2016 our spending will be 130% of our GDP, which is simply instable and can in no way be considered 'helpful' to our economy. Let's not forget the high intrest on our debt, so this number will only drastically increase in the long run. Some of you will be paying taxes by 2016, and as a taxpayer you will owe the government around 220K apeice, because at that point in time an even lower fraction of our population will be paying taxes than currently. I do not like Obama as a politician at

Romney's inconsistency with being specific and clear is a big problem because it makes him seem unprepared. Watching the debate this week shed some light to what Romney proposes to do, but he still was unclear on some issues. As a voter I would be frustrated because I would want to be inform with what Romney plans to do. I mean without a plan what he will do as president. Will we just have to wait till he is president to claim what he will actually do? I think it's important that Romney feels confident about winning the election because he is representing himself as a strong leader. A strong leader gives the people a sense of relief because they can feel like they can trust him.

I definitely think it's a issue. I don't know if there is a good solution to it but it's definitely something to be considered.

I actually really enjoyed this article just in the way it was written. There have been a lot of articles on how it will affect the polls and for the most part there seem to be losses for both candidates. I think Obama handled the situation well but I think it could go either way if it will gain him support for his efforts off lose him support from the suffering people will be going through

I agree, I think it was a smart idea that Obama did not panic about the storm. I think if here were to have, then that would have probably stressed the people out making him seem unprepared for this disaster. I think this would have had an impact in the polls, but since he took the news of the storm in calm manner that I do not think it will affect the polls.

I think the storm was really interesting because it makes people forget about politics for a second and think about life. It turns from Republican or Democrat to life or death, so people's minds must be really turned around right now. I think Obama's gentle care - and if he continues to have success in calming the people - will be majorly to his advantage because he helped people in a time when their lives were at threat. This seems more memorable than a critical TV campaign, so I'm thinking the storm will help Obama if anything.

This is getting totally blown out of proportion. Romney was just using Big Bird as an example of something that he would like to cut-and whether you approve of those cuts is another matter-but it wasn't like he was attacking Big Bird or its creators. I think this is an example of people latching on to the most colorful thing said in the debate and making it seem like the biggest issue of the election.

I think everyone needs to take a deep breath. The quote "Big Bird is an important part of every child's education" also seems a bit ridiculous although I do love Sesame Street. I do think debates are a great time to observe the candidates (like Yadira said) but it doesn't seem like this is an effective use of the discussion afterwards.

Agreeing with what has been said, it was one small comment that got totally blown out of proportion. After the debate I was watching some commentary on it and heard a lot being mentioned about that comment. Apparently, throughout the debate after it was said, twitter was cluttered with people discussing that singular comment. According to one of the news reporters I was watching discuss the debate (who I do not remember the name of), she said that in this debate it particular, and partially because Obama not going for making so many jokes (as Danielle's article talks about), this was one of the few things viewers were able to blow out and discuss which is why it has gotten so much attention.