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Romney criticizes Obama for not speaking out against the attacks on the US Ambassador in Libya. The article uses this to make Romney seem hasty, because Obama did condem the attack eventually. This just seems like another attempt of Romney's to gain the upper hand by nitpicking everything about the Obama administration. Numerous senators are also quoted in the article saying that this isn't a time for political division and Romney needs to be more careful before he says something stupid and insensitive. 

The first thing that stands out to me in this article is that the attack is described as a test of crisis skills rather than an actual thing that happened. I think that Obama is right in saying that "Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later", especially with his comments. He's trying so hard to appeal to people that he doesn't always think about the effects of what he says. I don't think that Romney understands that sometimes apology is the best way to handle things.

I think this is a time where criticizing the other party is not effective and should not be the main concern. I agree with you Sabrina, that sometimes an apology, or even acknowledgment, is the best way to handle things. But Obama has been criticized for less harsh action on foreign affairs so I'm surprised he didn't condem the attacks first. I guess he won't waver on how he feels he should approach these acts of terror.

This article is highlights the need for this coming week's Democratic Convention to mimic the optimism that Obama's previous convention in 2008 had. Being that Obama's speech is after that of Romney's, it will be interesting to see if he subtly responds to anything that Romney said. Regardless, it is clear that Obama must recapture America.

I agree that is is impossible to recapture the hope Obama had four years ago. I found it interesting to read this article after listening to his speech because I was able to compare what Obama did to what the article was suggesting. Again I agree that Obama attacking Romney is slightly disappointing and not what I expect or want to see from him normally. I think in his speech he did do a little bit of attacking with his various jokes, the one standing out to me at the moment being when Romney called Russie the nation's greatest enemy.

It was interesting to see the different tactics that are suggested that Obama needed to do so that he would perform well at the Democratic convention. After seeing the convention I feel like Obama did follow all of these tactics, but not to his fullest ability. I felt like his attacks on Romney were not as intense as when Romney was attacking Obama at the republican convention. I feel like this is a good thing because the fact that he was not constantly attacking Romney showed that he had an agenda in his speech rather than Romney who consistently attacked Obama in his republican convention speech.

This article is more about Iran than the election, but it brings up the prospect that the Obama administration chose not to release the information until after election day for political reasons. I don't think it's important whether he did or not, but I come to the question: how much does a political agenda sway what a media outlet or any entity that publishes information chooses to cover? Beyond tone, rhetoric and biased descriptions, could entire events have been passed over in the way of allegiance to one party or the other?

I believe that a political agenda has great influence on what information is released to the media and what stories are hidden from the public's eye. An example of this is the attack in Benghazi and the significant delayed release of information pertaining to the attack. It seemed that Obama's administration attempted to keep the details of this attack in the dark, in an attempt to preserve its reputation. I believe there will always be a political agenda behind what is and isn't released and I do believe that there have been events in the past that have been passed over in order to preserve someone's reputation but in this modern time with the interent, I believe it to be impossible for significant events to be hidden from the public and I believe that there will now be more events covered and talked about than there have been in the past.

James, I do not believe that Obama's "political agenda" delayed the release of the information pertaining to the attacks in Libya, or that the information was intentionally delayed. I do agree with your opinion that the government does have sway over the media, but I do not believe that this was one of those situations. Obama, himself, released the information and he did not receive the complete story.

This article outlines many of Romney's Ryan's views on Obama and his plans and policies for the country. I found this to be especially interesting: "Obama is simply offering more of the same." Do you think this is true? Is Obama offering exactly the same plans he did four years ago?

The quote you pulled out also stood out to me, Sabrina. While I think Obama in many ways will be the same, I think being in office for four years will inevitably change him. From listening to the issue presentations we have seen that many of his policies have changed. For instance his policies on Israel have shifted and he is still working on his immigration policy. I don't think we should expect a totally new president, but rather one that has learned and grown from his past experience with his same ideals.

Logically, we should not expect the same president. Romney probably isn't the only one noticing Obama's mistakes, and I believe that he will use things that he was not successful in to improve his skills.

This article discusses Romney's ad in Ohio saying that, under Obama's supervision, Chrysler and GM auto company is getting rid of jobs here in America and creating jobs in China. This seems to be a critical point to attack Obama's presidency, but the GM and Chrysler auto company took this offensively, saying that they are opening more businesses in China but are simultaneously increasing jobs here in America, not getting rid of them. Is Romney's seemingly desperate attempts at  criticizing Obama in the last few days before the election worth offending such large corporations? Will the short term message expressed in his commercial have a greater affect on the people than the long term controversy of Romney's use of false information? How do you think this type of manipulation will play out in the future?

Going off of what Abby said, some people may not look into the truth of the add. In that case, I think it could benefit Romney. But for people who have been following the campaign, they know that one of Obama's main platform is to bring jobs back the US...so I think they will be skeptical of the ad.

Romney's attempt to make Obama look bad backfires on him because he offends these car companies. I think it might affect him greatly, but it will make people think twice about Romney in the way that he offend an american company, that is important to america.

This article is about how the debates lifted moral for those supporting Romney and Ryan. To me, the article provided an interesting perspective because I usually follow the moral of the Democratic party. Do you think the lifted spirits of GOP members will affect the election? It was also interesting because towards the end, the article states that the debates show the "real Romney-Ryan agenda," although after watching the debates I thought that Ryan was unable to name specific agendas for the Romney-Ryan campaign. Do you think that, because I as a more liberal-leaning American find it hard to see a "real" Romney-Ryan agenda through the debates while conservatives argue that their agenda is more clear than that of Obama and Biden, the debates have little to do with showing people the beliefs of the candidates and more to do with lifting the spirits of the candidates' supporters?

I definitely think that being a more liberal American makes it harder to see the Republican campaign's policies. I agree that in the debate, Ryan seemed to be avoiding questions about policy and did not make it clear. But, I think that if you agree with the general premise of what someone is saying, it is much easier to look over specifics knowing that the principles behind it are what you believe in. When they are not, you are more likely to question them and scrutinize them until you find they haven't told you any specifics.

I completely agree with Abby - you hear what you want to hear. I was also interested in this quote from Romney: "People recognize this is not an ordinary campaign, this is a critical time for our country." Is this true? Or do we always say this? Doesn't every time seem critical?

These are graphs that show the different demographics that voted for which presidents.  It also shows the results to which states both Obama and Romney won. I think it's interesting that this year Florida did not play much of an important part as it usually does. 

The question about about handling medicare, the economy and the deficit are really telling. The implication of such a vast majority of voter agreeing with their candidates view on these specific issues is that a vast majority of voters based their choice on these issues.

I find it shocking that the african american community voted significantly more in favor of Obama than any other community combined. I side red with a ton of these issues. I'm still a little confused why people think that Obama's foreign policy is considered as being good considering that he completely covered up the fact that they CIA had been to libya two weeks before the attack and requested help, yet nothing was done. This is infuriating to me. I do not trust Obama to handle foreign policy, he is far to loose with Ahmadinejad, Iran's nuclear program has skyrocketed since 2008. Nothing about that seems 'successful' to me.

This article explains where each of the candidates stand in polls after the debate. Interestingly, according to the polls shown here, 51% of voters like Romney and 56% like Obama, meaning there are a significant amount of people that like both. Also, it definitively says that Romney won the debate. Who do you think won?

For me, the most disappointing thing was Obama's lack of enthusiasm. I also think Romney won this debate and clearly made himself seem like a more appealing candidate. Although he did do that on this one particular night, I think the candidate's personality overall, and not just in one night, is more important. I liked this quote from the article because I think it sums up what happened well: "This suggests to me that while the debate was effective in energizing the Republican base and giving Romney a boost, it didn't fundamentally change perceptions of either man a great deal."

I, too, would argue that Romney won the debate especially due to both his enthusiasm and Obama's lack of enthusiasm. I think this article raises a good question of whether the debates/policies of the candidates are more important to the election or the likability/relatability of the candidates are more important. While we are being educated in all areas of the candidates and are basing our views off of this educated standpoint, many voters might not know a lot about either Romney or Obama, so do you think the outcomes of the debates will have as big of an impact on the election as one might hope?

Article talks about Romney's BIg Bird comment. It brought a lot of controversy in Woodstock , Connecticut the home town of Big Birds creator.  It just further more proves how the debates are more of a chance to observe the candidates.  

I think that it was more inappropriate that he directly told Jim Lehrer that he was going to cut his job. Yes Big Bird is an icon, but he is fictional. Jim Lehrer is a real person who was specifically told that he is going to get fired if Romney wins.

Will brings up a good point. Romney's campaign is all about making jobs, but should we think about those who work for federally run businesses? Jim Lehrer would just be one of many to actually lose their job if government spending was decreased...

This article is about Obama's campaign switching over and talking about how Romney changes his policies and can therefore not be trusted. It emphasizes Obama keeping his word and focuses on a rally in Florida. It also discusses Obama referring to "Romnesia" The quote that really stood out to me was, "On the auto industry bailout, the hiring of public school teachers and Medicare, Obama said Romney is aiming to disguise his real positions in order to win the election." Do you think that Romney's position changes are going to have a negative or positive effect on his campaign? And, do you think that these are genuine changes or are for the polls?

When researching energy for the issues project we just completed, I read an article about an environmentalist who was leaning towards Romney, despite his views on energy resources that harm the environment, because his past positions on green energy gave her hope. Also, on a previous article, we were discussing how people might take Romney's switches as a confirmation of his concern for the people. At the same time, a lack of commitment to his beliefs could prove a lack of commitment to the people and his job. I know I feel more connected to that second argument, but I am very curious to how the rest of the country will look at this.

I'm not sure how Romney disguising his real plans would benefit him in any sort of way-if helping the country is not his "real goal", what is his goal in becoming president? And why would he present something other than the best plan he's got if he wants to win votes?

Romney is using Obama's failed promises to lower the unemployment rate below 8% as one of his most convincing points against the president's last four years.

Yes job creation is not the only question in "are you better off than you were four years ago?" but it is a big one. Having a job is a key to having a good life. It is one of the issues that most directly affects each American person. Even someone who pays no attention to politics or policy whatsoever is directly affected by jobs. So if Obama cannot create jobs now, I can see why the Romney campaign would choose to focus on criticizing that so strongly.

Unemployment has become such a pressing issue for many families that Romney is smart to bring up Obama's failed promises to lower the unemployment. Because having jobs is important to everyone, it makes sense that Romney is using this to the best of his advantage. That said, there is only so much control that Obama has and I don't think his "failed promise" leads directly to "are you better off than you were four years ago?"

What's interesting about this article is that it seems to criticize the campaigning tactics on both sides as being too negative and relying too much on garbled quotes from the other side.

This article was interesting as it really showed how the election is a back and forth of a negative comment from one party to the other party coming back with a defense to the claim and a new negative comment about the opposite party. This article definitely focused more on the negativity of the Obama campaign.

I also found this article super interesting because it shed light on the pettiness of campaigning.