With their debates now history, U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney return to the campaign trail to round up any remaining wavering voters in the final two weeks before the November 6 election.

Both candidates will be traveling to a number of states that hold a large number of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Obama will hold a rally in Florida before flying to Ohio, where he will campaign with Vice President Joe Biden. Romney will travel west to Nevada and Colorado for campaign rallies with Congressman Paul Ryan, his vice presidential running mate

The Democratic incumbent and the former Massachusetts governor exchanged their opposing views on foreign policy in their third and final debate Monday in the southeastern state of Florida. Romney criticized Obama’s handling of the Middle East, saying he has seen a “pretty dramatic reversal of the kind of hopes we had” there.

“I congratulate him on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after the leadership in al-Qaida, but we can not kill our way out of this mess. We are going to have to put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy to help the world of Islam and other parts of the world reject this radical violent extremism,” noted Romney. “Which is certainly not on the run. It is certainly not hiding.”

Obama said the United States has worked hard with allies to bring peace and democracy to the region, pointing to Libya as an example. “Without putting troops on the ground, at the cost of less than two weeks in Iraq, liberate a country that was under the yoke of dictatorship for 40 years, a despot who had killed Americans, and despite this tragedy ten of thousands of Libyans after the events in Benghazi marched, saying, ‘America is our friend. We stand with them,” he said.

Romney also challenged the president’s handling of Iran and its nuclear program, which he described as the United States’ greatest threat.

“I think from the very beginning, one of the challenges we have had with Iran is that they have looked at this administration and felt that the administration was not as strong as it needed to be,” stated Romney. “I think they saw weakness where they had expected to find American strength.”

Source: VOA News