US presidential debate: 10 best lines from Romney, Obama

by Isi Esene

As the November US presidential election draws closer, the two main candidates, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney continue to slug it out in fiercely contested debates to convince the electorate of their suitability for the top job.
Obama, who many considered to have lost the last debate came out blazing hot with memorable lines to etch the intention of his administration into the minds of the voters.
The Republican candidate, Romney, didn’t quite allow the president’s rhetorics to floor him as he stood his ground articulating his party’s ideas to the electorate.
With a hat-tip to politico.com, we bring you the top five memorable lines from each of the candidates in Tuesday’s debate which took place town hall-style at the Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.
Mitt Romney:

1. “When do you graduate? 2014. When you come out in 2014, I presume I’m going to be president. I’m going to make sure you get a job.”

2. “When we’re talking about math that doesn’t add up, how about $5 trillion of deficits over the last four years. That’s math that doesn’t add up.”
3. “We took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks.’ And they brought us whole binders full of women.”
4. “You shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer to figure out how to get into this country legally.”
5. “The president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did. And I think it’s important to know that was a process that was necessary to get those companies back on their feet so they could start hiring more people.”

Barack Obama:

1. “Gov. Romney doesn’t have a five-point plan; he has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules.”

2. “When he said behind closed doors that 47 per cent of the country considers themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about: folks on social security who have worked all their lives; veterans, who sacrificed for this country; students, who are out there trying to hopefully advance their own dreams but also this country’s dreams; soldiers, who are overseas fighting for us right now; people who are working hard every day.”
3. “We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics beyond Big Bird and eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood in terms of how he pays for that.”
4. “I don’t look at my pension. It’s not as big as yours, so it doesn’t take as long.”
5. “Gov. Romney was a very successful investor. If somebody came to you, governor, with a plan that said, ‘Here, I want to spend $7 or $8 trillion and we’re going to pay for it but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it.’ You wouldn’t have taken such a sketchy deal and neither would you, the American people.”