The candidates said nothing new in the first presidential debate.

Mitt Romney repeated the rhetoric from his political ads: President Obama is bad, Obamacare is bad, and the bad economy is all Obama’s fault. The only thing he said about what he would do if elected was the generic battle cry given by every Republican candidate: less taxes, more jobs and the repeal of Obamacare.

Romney says he will improve the economy, but with less than a month before Election Day he has yet to give specifics. Either he doesn’t have a plan or he doesn’t want to be held liable for a promise he can’t keep. This tells me he is just another cookie-cutter politician who will say anything to get elected.

I think Obama has done a good job with the mess he inherited.

People have either forgotten or have chosen to ignore the economic tailspin we were in when he took office. Since then the jobless numbers have stabilized, and the economy is slowly getting better. Granted, it’s not recovering as fast as we would all like, but a little improvement is better than continuing down the path we were on before Obama.

Has Obama been the perfect president? No, he hasn’t, and a lot of people blame him for every hardship they face. But when I consider the issues and not the rhetoric, I believe he is the better person for the job.

I hope people won’t vote for Romney just because he isn’t Obama.

Henry Ivey West III

Columbia