A Child's Perspective on the 3rd Presidential Debate

The kids stayed up with me to watch the final Presidential debate again tonight (we tried to watch the 2nd debate, but it devolved so quickly into petty bickering that we couldn't force ourselves to sit through it), and as I'm sure there are many (like me) who are still undecided about this election, I thought you might be interested to hear the kids' thoughts...

 

8-year-old: Decided three-quarters of the way through the debate that they were giving her a headache, and this wasn't worth staying up past bedtime for. She went to bed.

 

10-year-old: "I don’t get politics. That’s what I learned. They’re annoying, and I didn’t understand anything they said. I also learned that when you pause the TV, Mitt Romney always has a weird expression on his face."

 

12-year-old: "Mitt Romney contradicts himself on accident, because he tries to say something, but he confuses himself, I think. Barak Obama expects our country to be perfect, and he wants it to be the best. He expects us to have the best education, even though a lot of the people in our country aren’t really trying. He said in his closing statement that 'it would be good to have the strongest military,' but it’s kind of hard to be the best. I also learned that they made two-year-olds look mature!"

 

14-year-old: They both really like talking about the economy. 'What about foreign policy?' 'Well, let’s talk about the economy. Let’s talk about jobs.' It was annoying. Mitt Romney probably doesn’t have a plan. He’s just making it up as he goes along. Because he keeps saying 'I know how to do this. I’m keeping it a secret, but I know what I’m doing, just leave it to me.'"

 

When I asked the kids who they would vote for, only the ten-year-old had an answer. (She would vote for Obama, because he didn't say he would cancel PBS in the first debate.) This debate was no more successful than the first Presidential debate in convincing the children to support one candidate over the other.