After the first presidential debate, we spoke to several independent voters throughout the country who have not yet decided who they will be voting for come November. While some of them remain undecided, others said the first debate brought them closer to voting for either Romney or Obama.
Now, after the second presidential debate, we check back in with these voters to see what they thought and where they are leaning. We speak with AJ Dellinger of Wisconsin, Julia Pfaff of Virginia, Horacio Soberon-Ferrer of Florida, Dan Starr of Arizona, Barbara Dymond of New Hampshire, and Rick Robol of Ohio.
At the same time, we also check in with the twittersphere to see how other Americans reacted to the debates.
AJ Dellinger says he wishes they had spent more time talking details on the economy. “I still don’t really have an understanding of how the Romney plan works, and I really would like to.”
Dan Starr’s response to the debate? “There’s an old joke in America: How do you tell if a politician’s lying?” he asks. “The answer is, his lips are moving.” Starr says he does not put much weight in what candidates have to say, but he does pay attention to records. Starr thinks that Romney’s record as a job-creator is much more impressive than the president’s.
Female voters may have been a bit put off by the governor’s positions on women’s healthcare issues, as well as his “binders full of women” comment about women in the work force – a comment made in response to a question about equal pay for equal work, which he did not address in his answer.
“He doesn’t seem like he’s behind women, he doesn’t seem like he cares about women’s issues, or the pay scale being less for women,” voter Barbara Dymond said of Mitt Romney. “He came across to me as, that’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“I don’t think that Governor Romney was sufficiently familiar with all the facts,” voter Rick Robol says of the conversation about Libya, which was widely considered one of the governor’s weakest moments in this debate. Candy Crowley has fallen under criticism from the Republicans for fact-checking the governor, even though she later said that he was right in the main in asserting that it took two weeks for the president to come out and say that the attack in Benghazi was an act of terrorism. Many voters were impressed by Obama’s compassion on the subject of Libya.
Still, Rick Robol says that, “Once again, the real losers in this debate were the American people. Neither candidate seems able to stop the partisan bickering that is tearing our country apart.”
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