By Dane Vandervelden

Staff Writer
The Oct. 3 debate gave voters a good show since Mitt Romney has weathered the storm to gain the Republican nomination to oppose President Obama in the 2012 presidential elections.
According to recent polls, Obama leads his designated opponent for the fall of 2012, 47 percent to 49 percent on average. Despite his marginal edge, the ghosts of the past four years of Obama refuse to be put down. Questions over his fulfillment of the promises he made in 2008 have been plaguing Obama’s campaign. Mass murmurs of distrust in the notion of another four years with him at the helm cannot be ignored.
These issues, along with other mostly domestic ones, were the focus of their first debate on Oct. 3. Obama spotlighted government spending, Medicare and the decay of the nation’s school system all in what some have said to be a less-than-stellar performance. Uncharacteristically static and defensive, the president was trounced by an enthusiastic, passionate and confident Romney. Early analysis of the debate had Romney holding the upper-hand in the debate across the board, even if a majority of viewers felt that specifics as to solving the nation’s problems were scarce between both candidates.
Debates can be the key to presidential election. They allow for candidates to showcase their personalities to the populace at large, and if the president still has any fight in him, he’ll study this “defeat” and hopefully bring along some of the fire he has wielded in the past to his next encounter with Romney on Tuesday Oct. 16.