"Vice presidential debates typically matter as much as vice presidential picks — which is to say not a lot — but a convergence of factors is raising the stakes on this week’s faceoff between Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden. 

"Looming most heavy over the clash in Kentucky is President Barack Obama’s remarkably weak debate performance last week, a showing that has given Republicans their first sense of hope in weeks and increased the pressure on Biden to get Democrats back on course. ... 

"If 'Gentleman Joe' took the stage four years ago, determined not to come off as patronizing or bullying Sarah Palin, it seems almost certain that Thursday will bring the appearance of 'Scranton Joe,' the scrappy pol who’s never been afraid to throw a punch. ... 

"Ryan’s reputation as a master explainer also ups the ante."

"The impact of the first debate is going to be bigger than we know. It's going to affect thinking more than we know, and it's going to start showing up in the polls, including in the battlegrounds, more dramatically than we guess. 

"It wasn't just Mitt Romney's strong performance. It was President Obama's amazingly weak one. He's never been punctured before. But by debate's end Wednesday night, if you opened the window this is what you could hear: Ssssssss. The soft hiss of air departing from a balloon. ... 

"[T]his whole race is on the move again, it's in play again, and it's going to get fun.

"But it's going to get hot, too. And probably dirty."

"The first presidential debate of 2012 took place at the University of Denver and was between Obama and Mitt Romney. But only Romney showed up. ... 

"'I think this was a terrific debate,' Obama said near the end of the evening. 

"And it was. For Mitt Romney."

"The Libya follies are merely the most visible flashpoint of the larger unraveling of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. The U.S.-Israel relationship has become a bad soap opera. Afghanistan is slipping away, as our troops are being killed by the men they’re supposed to be training for the handover. Egypt is now run by the Muslim Brotherhood. Russia casually mocks and defies us. China is rapidly replacing us as an Asian hegemon and rattling sabers at our ally Japan. 
 
"Most troubling, as Fred and Kimberly Kagan document in the current issue of National Review, Iraq is rapidly becoming an Iranian vassal state. When President Obama entered office, we had nearly 150,000 troops in Iraq and much sway over the course that nation took. Now we have 150 and almost no sway. Sectarian violence is up, and al-Qaeda in Iraq is resurgent."

"In pundit circles, the hot talking point of the past couple of months is that President Obama may be spared defeat because things have been bad for so long that Americans may view the country’s parlous condition as 'the new normal.' ... 

"A great many people may accept that there’s a 'new normal,' but Romney has a real opportunity to persuade them that they don’t have to stick with the president who mired them in it."

"As a recovering pollster (I worked for Democratic pollster Peter Hart from 1974 to 1981), let me weigh in on the controversy over whether the polls are accurate. Many conservatives are claiming that multiple polls have overly Democratic samples, and some charge that media pollsters are trying to discourage Republican voters. ... 

"I don’t believe that any of the media pollsters have been tilting their results in order to demoralize Republicans, although I do look with suspicion on the work of some partisan pollsters. 
 
"But I do have my doubts about whether samples with more Democratic-party identification than in 2008 are accurate representations of the actual electorate. Many states with party registration have shown big drops in registered Democrats since then."

"Mitt needs to show us how angry he is at what Obama has done to America. He needs to show us he's as 'mad as hell' and can't take it for another four years. 

"Come on, Mitt -- get as mad as the rest of us."

"Voters expect politicians to stretch the truth. But when the offender is as persistent with mistruths, half-truths and no-truths as Mr. Obama is, voters expect the other candidate to blow the whistle. They want their leaders to show toughness and be competitive. Which brings us back to the coming Oct. 3 debate, to be followed by two others on Oct. 16 and 22. 

"During these widely watched events, Mr. Romney must call out the president. That is not so easy: Mr. Romney can't call Mr. Obama a liar; that's too harsh a word that would backfire. Mr. Romney must instead set the record straight in a presidential tone — firm, respectful, but not deferential. And a dash of humor is worth its weight in gold. ... 

"What exactly about the past four years do Americans like? And why would they want four more years like them? Mr. Obama knows how most Americans would answer these questions, which is why he is being so fast and loose with the truth. Mr. Romney's job is to shine a light on this for voters."

"The repercussions from 9/11/12 — the day the roof fell in on the Obama administration’s Middle East policy — continue to rumble across the diplomatic and political landscapes. Before that day, much of the country’s political and media establishment had been studiously ignoring signs of trouble in the Middle East or, when problems were too serious to ignore, studiously refraining from drawing conclusions about the overall state of U.S. policy in the region.
 
"The anti-American riots that have been rocking the Muslim world since 9/11 have shaken the establishment out of its complacency. Increasingly, even those who sympathize with the basic elements of the administration’s Middle East policy are connecting the dots. What they are seeing isn’t pretty. It’s not just that the U.S. remains widely disliked and distrusted in the region. It’s not just that the radicals and the jihadis have demonstrated more political sophistication and a greater ability to organize and strike than expected and that the struggle against radical terror looks longer lasting and more dangerous than thought; it’s that the strategic underpinnings of the administration’s Middle East policy seem to be falling apart. A series of crises is sweeping through the region, and the U.S. does not — at least not yet — seem to have a clue what to do."

"In 1988, Michael Kinsley issued a now-famous definition: 'A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say.' 

"Now, almost a quarter century later, we need a new definition for the word. Here’s mine: 'A gaffe is a statement that makes a Republican politician look bad.' ... 

"A frustrated liberal media used the word 'Teflon' to describe their inability to make gaffes and misstatements stick to Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama doesn’t need Teflon. 

"He’s saved by the new rule of gaffes rigorously applied by the media: Democrats don’t make them."