(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) THE PRESIDENTIAL debate in the US is getting terse.
Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney do not want to mince words but at the same time want to spill the beans. This is calculated politics: one step forward and again one-step back. Neither wants to abdicate their stated positions. Republican contender Romney was surprisingly bulldozing away Obama's rhetorical myth on Wednesday, as he came up with a plethora of statistics that at least the Democrats never expected a conservative and serious-natured business executive to indulge in. Obama literally stood capitulated. But that was not the end of the story nor the road to D.C. Obama knew well that there are few more weeks to go and a couple of debates to pay back. That is why perhaps Obama smiled and looked the other way round as Romney vowed to end subsidies. Nonetheless, the man who had called Obama the 47 per cent giver had the audacity to fall back on the president's advice to act as the representative of the entire Americans. Mitt, apparently by taking his advice, agreed to be the 'helping hand' for the 100 per cent. The Republican, who was against regulations and Washington's role in health insurance plans, was surprisingly muted as he laid down his five-point economic agenda. So much so for diatribe and kneejerk reactions!
In no time since the Wednesday's faux pas, heaven seems to have smiled on Obama. Friday's positive jobs report gave Obama an opportunity to lambast his contender and sell his 'moving forward again' agenda. The incumbent takes pride in boasting that his administration has been able to create 5.2 million jobs and around 50 million people are direct beneficiary of social security provisions. That is too big a deal to torpedo gimmicks that Republicans might plan to float in days and weeks to come. With the battle getting intense, it's high time Americans were made to make a choice on an objective criterion.
