Presidential Debate

            The first thing I noticed about the Presidential Debate was the posture of the two candidates. Governor Romney seemed extremely tense, and stood very straight, while President Obama seemed more casual, putting all of his weight on one foot, and seemed fairly relaxed. Romney’s piercing eyes were dead set on making eye contact with the camera, or directly at the President. While Obama spends a great deal of time making notes and observing whatever he holds on the podium, Romney surprisingly appears as if he has nothing to observe.

           

            Their posture really spoke to me the whole time, particularly while they are on mute. I feel that Romney intentionally stands an a more postured manner to appear as his Republican party would expect him to; as a strong conservative leader that is going to be a good leader for his fellow citizens. Obama’s lenient stance seems to be more of a shared one among “the people”. Throughout this campaign, the candidates seem more concerned with badgering each other until the last man standing wins. Their stance alone speaks mountains to me about how this election has turned out to appear. The constitution behind the candidates seems to promote the original ideas of simplicity and freedom for the fellow man. I believe if I crawled out from under a rock and saw this footage on mute, it would appear as if two men are standing for what they believe is best, and simply discussing the problems and solutions. Fortunately, that’s exactly what they are doing, but it makes me question the true intentions of the opponents. Knowing the background of this election, I can’t help but wonder if the intent is truly what is better for the country, or which person can get more votes.

            Viewing this debate in silence means almost as much as it does with words to me, for I truly pay attention to the actions of the candidates as equally as the words. Documenting these moments proves true to the questioning of photography as reality.  I jump to the thought of ‘actions speaking louder than words’, as well as ‘a picture is worth thousand words.’  As far as politics go, it seems you can tell a great deal more from the way a person moves and acts as opposed to what they say. This debate expresses a great deal of how the country sees and understands these two men, at least how they are portrayed on the television screen.