Abstract

By consensus, President Barack Obama’s performance in the first 2012 Presidential debate was weak. Anticipating the second debate, commentators asserted that he must make a strong comeback to revive his candidacy. He is widely judged to have done so. I will examine the major argumentative exchanges in the debate to determine to what degree it exhibited virtues of argumentation and whether Obama’s perceived comeback was a matter of argumentative superiority as well as performance.