The final debate has just finished. The 2012 presidential campaign is just weeks from ending with the November 6th election. The first debate caused a surge in the polls for Governor Romey, closing the gap on incumbent President Obama. The second debate, a town hall style, changed the polls very little. This final debate may be the deciding factor for remaining undecided voters in a campaign that could swing toward either candidate. How did they fare?

Right from the beginning, their debate strategies became clear: Obama's plan was to remain on the offensive, in an effort to deliver a knock-out punch; Romney's plan was to remain cool and just present his argument. As the debate progressed, it was clear that Obama was getting frustrated that Romney was not taking the bait in looking frazzled, and Romney was becoming frustrated that he could not finish an argument without being interrupted.

Many of Obama's attacks against Romney seemed like childish low-blows, such as explaining what an aircraft carrier is and how planes can land on it. Humor can work in debates, but his was not such a moment. This pettiness continued until Romney made some hits back in relation to the economy. I remains to be seen how voters react to the tactics by both candidates.

When it came to foreign policy arguments, both candidates presented their arguments and said what they needed to say. After the fireworks of the last debate, the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack topic was relatively subdued, and they quickly moved to Iran, China, and Israel. There were some back-and-forth jabs in this segment of the debate, but an undecided voters probably won't get too much from the arguments, since the rhetoric was laid on so thick to derive much truth.

Even though the core topic of this debate was foreign policy, discussion continued to Segway to domestic policy, namely the economy. Since Romney's experience is business, this is where is strength lies. He did make sure to point out the conservative principal of government not being the creator of jobs and needing to step back for the private sector to create new jobs. This contrasted from Obama's progressive ideal of government having a more hands-on approach.

When it comes to the big picture derived from the debate and the candidates, I saw Romney came across as the stronger leader. His solid handling of the constant attacks and jabs appears to me to lend toward better handling of stressful situations that a president may face. Also, when it comes to the economy, Romney once again is the stronger of the two, since he touted his experience in business and balancing of budgets. Thus, I saw Romney as a clear winner of the debate.

What was unfortunate in this whole debate series is that only two parties were able to participate, as is generally the case. There are candidates also running for president from the Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, Green Party, Socialist Party, and many others. How would those candidates have faired against Obama and Romney? That is unclear. Still, it would be healthy for the nation to see all these other candidates.

Some may think that new parties can never rise to prominent power. To that I say that both the Democratic and Republican parties were in the same position at one time. Remember the Federalist Party or the Whig Party or the Democratic-Republican Party? Those were all major parties at one point. Plus, the first President under the US Constitution, George Washington, was unaffiliated and disliked political parties.

I would like to hear the thoughts of others who saw this debate.

Don't forget that the US presidential debates may be over, but we still have the Waffle King vs. Old Man Skunk debate this Saturday at 8:00pm EDT. This will help us to determine who becomes the next president of TMJ's continent of Mannheim.