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                       Rhetoric Plays Key Role in Debate

   by Avi Arditti

   The third and final debate between U.S. President Barack Obama and
   Republican challenger Mitt Romney focused on foreign policy issues.

   Sam Potoliccio, a faculty member at Georgetown University in
   Washington, is teaching a presidential rhetoric class. After watching
   Monday's debate with his 15 students, he says Obama had a "very strong
   night."

   "I think he was able to rhetorically establish his command, and I think
   that was one of the things he set out to do, and he had a couple of
   lines where he said to Romney 'I know you've never had to execute
   foreign policy' or 'as commander-in-chief' or 'as the president of the
   United States," he said.

   Potoliccio says his students got a laugh when, halfway through the
   debate, the commander-in-chief got in a "zinger."

   "I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how
   our military works.  You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we
   have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have
   fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military has
   changed," he said.

   Potoliccio says that line quickly became a meme, a viral idea, as it
   sailed across social media.

   "Well, the meme that's floating around right now is the 'horses and
   bayonets' line because I think this was illustrating the larger
   narrative that Obama was trying to portray Romney as someone who has
   outdated policies and principles that will bring us backward," he
   said.
   He thinks Governor Romney's most effective strategy during the debate
   was tying the economy to American foreign policy. "And when he goes off
   topic, when he goes off the economy, he's not as strong," he said.

   Romney was asked to respond to the president's accusations that his
   policy proposals are "wrong and reckless."

   "I've got the policy for a future, an agenda for the future.  And when
   it comes to our economy here at home, I know what it takes to create 12
   million new jobs and rising take-home pay. And what we've seen over
   the last four years is something I don't want to see over the next four
   years," he said.

   Probably the most confusing word of the debate was "sequestration."
   This is the name for automatic budget cuts that Congress plans to begin
   this January. The money is to be sequestered, or kept away, from
   federal agencies because a special committee in Congress failed to
   reach a deficit reduction plan last year.

   "The issue here is, I don't think anyone really knows what that word
   means at all, particularly the average voter. And this gets to another
   issue is, sometimes if you just use words and you recite statistics -
   and Paul Ryan did in the vice presidential debate, you talk about
   certain geographical features of Afghanistan, people just kind of
   assume you know what you're talking about," he said.

   Sam Potoliccio is on the faculty of Georgetown University in Washington
   and is a visiting professor at the Russian Presidential Academy in
   Moscow. Election Day is November 6, and some voters already are casting
   early ballots in what opinion polls show to be a very close race.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/rhetoric-plays-key-role-in-debate/1532082.html