United States President Barack Obama came out swinging against
Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a tense second debate in which the
candidates sparred on the economy, health care, immigration and the attack on
the US diplomatic mission in Libya. The first polls after Tuesday night’s debate at Hofstra
University - moderated by CNN journalist Candy Crowley - gave Obama a slim
victory over the former Massachusetts governor, who kept up the harsh attacks
on the incumbent’s record that he also delivered on October 3 in Denver. Eighty
undecided voters were in the audience for the town-hall debate and 11 of them
asked questions of the candidates, each of whom walked around the stage and
regularly sought to talk over and interrupt his rival.
Romney “doesn’t have a five-point plan; he has a one-point plan.
And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of
rules,” Obama said at the outset of the debate, immediately showing a sharp
contrast with the subdued demeanor he exhibited in Denver. The president
repeatedly accused his opponent of misleading the public, saying “very little
of what Governor Romney said is true” after the Republican insisted that oil
production had fallen during his administration and blamed him for the rising price
of gasoline.
Obama also went on the attack on health care, saying Romney’s
plan would not ensure that women have access to contraception through their
insurance coverage and that he “feels comfortable having politicians in
Washington decide the health care choices that women are making.” Romney fired
back by saying “every woman in America should have access to contraceptives and
the president’s statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong.”
Obama said Romney would be “the last person” to get tough on
China for unfair competition due to his investments in companies doing business
there. Romney, meanwhile, hammered away at the president on “Fast and Furious,”
a federal undercover sting that allegedly allowed some 2,000 weapons to be
smuggled into Mexico in a purported bid to take down high-ranking cartel
figures.
The program was shut down in late 2010 after guns traced to the
program were linked to the killing in Arizona of US Border Patrol agent Brian
Terry. Obama at times sought to score points by painting Romney as more
“extreme” than former President George W. Bush, saying that on immigration
“Bush embraced comprehensive immigration reform. He didn’t call for
self-deportation.”
“He called the Arizona law a model for the nation. Part of the
Arizona law (SB 1070) said law enforcement officers could stop folks because
they suspected maybe they looked like they might be undocumented workers and
checked their papers,” the president said. He was referring to the “show me
your papers provision,” a section of the law upheld by the US Supreme Court
that requires police officers to check an individual’s immigration status
during a “lawful stop, detention or arrest.”
Romney responded by saying Obama pledged to file immigration
overall bill in his first year to promote legal immigration and halt the
illegal flow of migrants across the border but failed to do so. “We should make
sure that our legal system works,” Romney said, adding that “So I will not
grant amnesty to those who’ve come here illegally.” The Republican will have
that opportunity during the next debate, which is scheduled for Florida on
October 22 and will be the last one before the November 6 election.
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