(Barack Obama, Creative Commons)

With the prevailing perception that Obama had lost both previous presidential debates, it was obvious that the President needed a victory tonight. Regardless of who you think won this round, it was undeniable that Obama came out of the gate determined to set Romney back on his heels. While Romney adopted a very patronizing attitude throughout Obama's arguments, the sitting president adopted an alternating defensive and aggressive approach in this debate, volleying his position as the sitting president to overshadow and discredit the validity of Romney's points.

When discussing the recent events in Libya during he first segment, Obama declared that his "first job as Commander-in-Chief" was to look out for America's safety. More so than to explain his stance in relations on the Middle East, Obama's reference to himself as the leader of the American Armed Forces seemed to be more significant as a power play. And far different from Obama's perennially stoic expression as Romney spoke, Romney's face constantly featured a smirk that seemed to call into question every clearly listed fact Obama voiced. And as the debate continued, that smirk developed into dismissive interruptions.

Still referring to their plans for handling delicate issues in the Middle East, Romney disparaged Obama's current and future foreign policy, saying "my strategy us broader than that." But these tactics weren't specific to one side; Obama chose his words carefully, juxtaposing his experience as our current President with Governor Romney's infamously uncertain positions on major issues in this campaign. Obama immediately pounced on a statement from Romney about his views in Russia, almost demeaning when explaining, "I know you have actually been in a position to execute foreign policy, but every time you've offered an opinion you were wrong."

After these words from the President, Romney took a route previously used by his opponent. "Attacking me is not an agenda," was Romney's hypocritical response, when in fact, during the past two debates and throughout the endless campaigning for this elections, the Republican's specialty seemed to be attacking the other party's views rather than clearly explaining his own.

So while the two candidates started out using the moderator Bob Schieffer as their focal point, their words gradually became more and more directed at one another as their opinions were increasingly slanted as means to promote the relative positions of credibility, past success and potential leadership. Listening to their comments about each chosen topic, both candidates inevitably brought up the United States' role as as world leader helping other countries develop in terms of economics, in terms of women's rights and in terms of a direction toward peace.

Any one of their expressed end goals could have been general summations of their approaches to every country in need of American assistance, whether mentioned (Libya, Egypt, Mali), or not. The generalities that both candidates used to sum up their points were more useful to both sides in terms of scoring points to boost an image of strength or intelligence, rather than in terms of the facts of the debate.

In context if the role of these debates in reaching those all-important undecided votes in the eight swing states that, according to Politico, are evenly split between the two candidates, the barbed but superficial comments from both sides make a lot of sense. Those who will decide this election might be only looking for a moment of uncertainty in one of the candidates or an aggressive attack, like Obama's proclamation that foreign policy is, "driven by strategy, it's not driven by politics."

Whether it's this debate or another future show of strength that wins over these undecided voters, we won't know. This last-ditch effort could have untold influence, or no effect at all. The only thing we'll get to see are the end results on November 6.

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage of the 2012 Presidential Debate here.

Reach Contributor Zion Samuel here.