What are your opinions of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama?

[GirlwiththeBlueBox]

Question is self-explanatory. I know the elections for America are coming up soon and I've heard a lot of differing opinions surrounding the two candidates. Just wondering what you all thought of them.

[Emmi]

I'd give you my opinions about Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan but I'd get stopped by the filters. In a few weeks I'll be voting and my vote definitely will be for Obama/Biden. Their views, while I don't agree with them 100% of the time, are pretty close to my views whereas Romney/Ryan's "plans," if I actually know what their plans are, I don't find much in common with. I'd go more into that, but it's 10:30 and I have to get some work done.

And Paul Ryan is really ugly just saying

[unicornication]

Barack Obama was always the guy I'd vote for if I lived in the US, though, they trash one another's campaigns so much, that you don't really get an accurate representation of either candidate. Romney isn't actually that bad when you hear his speeches, though, it is quite disconcerting that all he mentions is America's economy, it seems to be his top priority, the leaked video is also quite disconcerting.

Obama is all for science and technology, which is why I'd go with him if I had the opportunity to do so.

[sarahlouise]

I cannot stand Mitt Romney at all, he is hypocritical and he is everything that I stand against.

Go Obama

[flinquinnster]

Well, I'm Australian, and I think there was a recent poll done saying that 80% of Australians would vote for Obama. I'm one of the 80% America's electoral process always fascinates me. I wonder why anybody would vote for Romeny, but clearly some people do. I sort of understand the economic liberalism and free-market ideology he talks on about, but his talk on not cutting social services in the process of handing out tax cuts does seem a bit ludicrous. And Obama is a far superior orator, most of the time

[Ezak]

While I don't completely agree with them on economical issues, I would vote for Obama/Biden. Romney is just so far away from my views on how a society should function, on a strong secular ground.

[IBidiot]

Honestly, while I am certainly not incredibly informed when it comes to politics, I lean more towards Romney since we need to fix our economy (which happens to be a major problem: hence why he speaks so much about it). Although perhaps Obama came in at a wrong time, where I live, things have gotten steadily worse: massive budget cuts, job losses, etc. Obama might have been a good president at another time but not right now when the American nation is so weak. Whatever I lean towards, it still doesn't change the fact that the majority of the government is corrupt or manipulating, but it will take a long time to fix whichever path we take. On a side note, I do happen to support Obama's energy ideas, but on the other hand, it will take time, is expensive to start up, and we do happen to have resources that we can still use here....hmmm....

[krystinawashereXD]

WELLLLLLLL, since you asked, Mitt Romney is an idiot.

I really don't understand how people can actually vote for him..

I mean, honestly. The things he stands for are pointless. He believes in fighting a war, which has killed way too many people. Also, his whole economic ideals are simple stupid. He believes in making the upper-class people in America richer and richer, and thinks that everyone else beneath that should fend for themselves, without any help whatsoever. How on earth does that make any sense at all? Gah, I wish I could vote this year!

OBAMA NEEDS TO BE RE-ELECTED.

[OElleBelleO]

I am so happy that we can actually debate a topic like this without too much bashing. Any other US site with this sort of discussion would be a complete "**** fit."

Answering the question:

I would definitely vote for Obama. The main reasons is that I don't like Romney's view concerning equality. Concerning Romney, he not only won't support the equal pay act for women or any other gender equality supporting bill but he also plans on removing the contraceptive rights of women by banning abortions and allowing employers to decide whether they want to provide contraceptive services to their women employees (which we all know 90% of companies won't do because it would jack up the price).

Furthermore, Romney bases most of his view points on religion, which doesn't become a problem unless you try to impose those values on the rest of the country that may not have the same religious views.

So basically that means, no homosexual marriage rights, no equality for women, hispanic discrimination, a theme of white, christian superiority, etc. This doesn't sound like the kind of America we grew up being proud of.

[Sandwich]

Were I able to, I would vote for Obama without one moment's hesitation. The main reason for me would be social issues and freedoms. Things like freedom of and from religion, equality for women, equality for gay people, women's right to choose, freedom to have contraception, a secular education system and so on. Things which would be considered unthinkable bigoty in the UK (and to be honest most of the rest of Europe and elsewhere!) are mainstream views espoused by the Republican party and all of them are reasons why (until Obama came in) I used to find the USA an extremely limited, prejudiced and bigoted place to live.

A second almost equally important issue would be foreign policy decisions and a Republican tendency towards aggression. The lack of foreign knowledge and interest in the Republicans is genuinely frightening. Obama has actually managed to get the US go to about things in a considered and diplomatic way for the first time in a long while and I think internationally the profile of the US has changed for the better - seeming less insular and prone to default to "KILL THEM ALL AND BOMB THEIR CHILDREN". Romney wants to cut stuff like Obamacare (which seemed to most Europeans and others like a massive breakthrough in a society which has never valued looking after each other, compared with 'our' societies where freely accessible healthcare is considered the sign of a developed country) and instead increase defence spending. Defence spending essentially equals offence spending. He's already offended even the British when he visited them (supposedly 'friends' and lapdogs pretty difficult to offend) and has apparently quit on trying to get diplomatic solutions for places like Gaza in favour of saying that the Isrealis deserve to take all the land from Palestine. Does the US need more wars, more deaths, more money being put into pointless endeavours and to cause even greater offence and lack of understanding between itself and the Muslim world? IMO on the international stage, the Republican party would be a disaster. Fortunately for Romney, most americans don't seem to care very much about the rest of the world and are almost 100% focused on domestic affairs, so voters for the large part disregard his ignorance and lack of skill and tact in handling himself.

My third reason would in fact be the economy. The economy has sucked absolutely everywhere, and the US hasn't actually done as badly as other places. The US is in fact doing better with Obama's plan to spend to get everything moving again compared with Romney's plan (to spend even less and save money and reduce the overall deficit). Looking at countries which have embraced austerity, which is what Romney is going for, their economies have in fact stagnated and even gone back into a double dip recession. You have only to look at the UK. To the guy who was saying that under Obama there have been massive budget cuts, under Romney there are going to be even BIGGER budget cuts. That's the whole point of austerity. In the longer term of course Obama's plan runs up more debt, but what's the point of having less debt but no economy moving so people can make money to pay it off? In my humble opinion a greater amount of suffering is created by austerity because it takes away job creation, causes job losses, reduces safety nets in society, reduces public services, decreases spending as people no longer have as much money as they did before, and therefore also collapses businesses as money is no longer flowing round the system so they lose liquidity and custom, it stops banks from loaning money to companies as the security is not sufficiently high so they also collapse through that... so on and so on and so on. Everything which is currently happening in the UK, in short. It is a bad plan. I hate it, and strongly disagree with the rate at which cuts have been pushed through in the UK which seems to have been done at a level especially to maximise harms and minimise gains. Yes we all need to reduce the deficits, but we need to do so in a way which gives everybody involved a tolerable quality of life and keeps money flowing so that we can make the money TO pay off the deficit.

I also happen to agree that there should be some greater redistribution of wealth within society. If you're going to make tax changes, raise taxes on those with a larger amount of free money and don't go for the jugulars of all the people who're just scraping by. Don't make tax changes which REDUCE taxes on the rich. If you look at the US, taxes are already pitiful compared to here. For instance our VAT rate is around 20%, in the US I believe it's about 6%. It's an endemic dissonance in the US, however, that putting money back into society doesn't bring out anything for yourself, almost like the money is being swallowed or dumped in a lake somewhere. It's a cultural thing, I think, that americans seem to put very low value on infrastructure and social institutions to the point where it's almost like they contribute nothing.

Freeing up the market and deregulating things is a double-edged sword, in my opinion. It has great potential for gains, but then it's also deregulation which sparked the whole economic crisis in the first place. So. I suppose I just don't know enough about economics

[Guest triesvan]

i'd vote for Ron Paul, But thats not possible

I would vote for Obama/Biden because Romney is influenced too much by the Tea Party members. But the economy would be better with Romney.

But due to the ridiculous opinions of the Tea Party members you cant do anything else then to vote for Obama/Biden.

[URA BOAT]

Personally the biggest decider in this election will be how can get the economy back on track. Romney is a business man, that had a lot of experiences. For a while back in the day his job was to buy businesses that were hitting rock bottom turn them around and sell them for profit. This guy manged to do so. Personally my views are close with his, but for all of you people that think that social problems are important, let me say this, when a country is prospering changing social view is easier and more widely accepted.

My Vote Goes To Romney

[IBidiot]

The only reason that I would support Romney is for the economy, not for equality rights. Anybody ever heard of the Patriot Act? It was enacted in America to help keep track on possibly threatening situations concerning people of interests. The thing is, if the government suspects you of anything dangerous for any reason, then they have the right to tap into your phone, computer, and anything else that can be used to gather information. This seems to violate several rights given to American citizens detailed in the Constitution. Although Bush, a Republican, was the one who passed this under his term, Obama also supported this, and if Romney is voted in, then it will be repealed. I understand why this was passed: to "protect" the people, but honestly, it seems as if the government supports loose interpretation and can twist the rules as they please in order to carry out what they want; they can manipulate the act. It may not seem like a big deal, but this is what the original framers and colonists were trying to prevent: the abuse of power to violate natural rights. I only offered the gist of the subject as we were discussing it with a Russian sub in IB seminar class, but this issue needs to be addressed and is largely ignored..... It just seems as if our current government strays more and more to violations of the Constitution in small, unnoticable increments so that we lean away from the original vision. I'm all for his equality policies (whether or not there are for his own motives in gaining votes or for actual equal support can be debated) and his energy policies; I am also not for more wars as we need to focus more on our own problems, but when it comes to running a country, there are so many internal and external factors in play that it would be dangerous to strictly play by your own personal views, so of course each leader has to adjust and satisfy other parties.... whatever I'm rambling..

I do wish that our endeavors would return to the original idea; political parties were not intended and with their arrivals, harsh division of the cabinet and functioning government ensued. Our goals should be what needs to be immediately addressed, not what one social class prefers. The government serves the people and was created by the people. Our involvement with foreign affairs and other means has proven to be detrimental in many instances. As Washington stated in his farewell address, “It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments [incites] occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption. . . .” Unfortunately with such differentiating opinions present throughout the world, leaders use persueing words to lure people into following them. No matter if the leader means it or not, the main focus should be on what the general population as a whole needs in order to break the ongoing cycle that we are in.

Edited November 7, 2012 by IBidiot

[unicornication]

Just to add something interesting I recently found to this thread. :-)

Edited November 4, 2012 by unicornication

[Guest amentalaim]

Mitt Romney has given a five step 'plan' to recover the economy but refuses to go into details on exactly what he would do (he goes on infinitely about loop-holes, but he neither says which loop-holes he would close or anything other than his repeated "I'm going to cut taxes and not put America into recession again by closing loop-holes). Mitt Romney is extremely anti-abortionist and anti-womens' rights. Mitt Romney's immigration policies are controlling and almost totalitarian (making it legal in ALL the USA for people who 'look like illegal immigrants' to provide proof to the police on the street? That seems to echo of the Nazi Germany too - just change it to 'Latino' instead of 'Juden' on their papers and it's a perfect replica...) Mitt Romney's foreign policy is not only overly-simplistic and out-dated, but would criminalize the country I currently live in. Mitt Romney is fervently Mormon and is much too eager to force his religious beliefs on others. Mitt Romney has changed his stance on practically everything at least once. Mitt Romney lies (not uncommon for a politican of course) but even when large corporations have called him out, he refuses to acknowledge their claims. Mitt Romney has attempted to exclude the press on countless occasions, even refusing interviews with his own supporters. Mitt Romney has shown himself to be a terrible diplomat and representative of the USA - just look at what he said about the London Olympics.

Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republican party are skewed so far to the right that it terrifies me. Did you know that 20 years ago, Obama would have been a moderate right wing Republican with his current policies? As the progress of the elections continues, I'm becoming more and more disillusioned with the US and by the time I will be able to vote in two years (I'm an American citizen), I just hope that things will not deteriorate even further.

[Kaushalz]

I would have voted for Romney if I had the chance...

It is not because I am particularly fond of Romney, but rather because I think the US should have changed their president. Obama got his four years, what did he do? Not much... What will he do the next four years? Again, probably very little... All Obama wants is to sit on his lazy ass in the white house and enjoy a life of luxury and fame.

Romney was not a good canidate, but at least he would have tried to change the state of the US for the better.

But of course, we will see how things onfold the next four years. My bet is that little is going to change from the way things are now.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Kaushalz

[Luka Petrovic]

This is just the problem with 4 year terms. Its not enough time to do anything substantial, additionally Obama has no power with the Senate being mostly republican. He mostly carries a title, when you look at the collective power of other powerful people in the US government. Obama is also dealing with issues in the US economy that go back to the Nixon and Reagan presidencies. Four years is not enough. The reason why Romney looks enticing is because he is new. All politicians talk big during elections. I would safely bet that Romney if given the chance would not do any better than Obama has.

[dniviE]

This pretty much sums up my opinion on both:

.

However, the US political system is the problem in the first place.