The Presidential Debates: Blog Post 5

1. Obama's signature half pointing, half fist hand gestures strike a good balance between accusatory finger pointing and angry fist waving.  It emphasizes his points without any negative connotations.
2. Obama uses pathos to generate sympathy from the crowd by mentioning that it's his anniversary.
3. Romney appeared more aware and invested in the topics throughout the entire debate, making his points seem more important.
4. Romney uses pathos through touching personal examples of his and his wife's interactions with voters.
5. Both candidates try to oversimplify their opponent's policies and therefore argue against them more easily.
6. Romney uses repetition when talking about tax cuts and adding to the deficit.
7. Both candidates cite outside sources to add to their ethos and make themselves seem less biased.
8. Both use the red herring fallacy; they kept bringing up other topics and avoiding the specific questions asked by the proctor.
9. Both use post hoc, assuming that the poor economic state of the country is based on Obama's or Bush's actions only.
10. Both candidates use the slippery slope fallacy; Romney suggests that awful things will happen if Obama is reelected and Obama suggests the same in the case of Romney's election.