I've said it once, I'll say it again: Biden is the one who will decide how this debate turns out.
Yeah, I agree. Ryan is fairly predictable. I think we know decently well how he's going to approach this debate and how he is going to fare, so it's really up to Biden to decide what exactly the story is coming out of the debate. My guess is that we're not going to have a clear consensus with the VP debate the way we did coming out of the first debate, with both sides scoring some points while also getting new ammunition against the other. Ryan is likely going to lie his ass off, and Biden is far more likely to call him on it than Obama is. On the flip side, Biden is more likely than Obama to screw up some facts, and it's also very possible that he says something really silly or phrases something really poorly.
The net result, I think, is likely to be a fairly mixed response to the debate that doesn't really turn the polls much either way. That would be good news for Obama as it would stop the bleeding and blunt Romney's momentum. The next two presidential debates are also much more favorable to Obama than the first, which was centered around his most vulnerable positions. Obama engages people very well, so a town hall format should work very well for him and open up more opportunities to rebuff Romney's points. He is also no dummy and knows full well what people are saying about his first debate performance, so I think you're going to see him a lot more energized. He has looked that way in his stump speeches since the debate as well. And then the final debate should be almost a gift for Obama. Foreign policy is an area he's very strong on and that he's very confident about (unlike his domestic policy record, which he has almost been apologetic for throughout the campaign, even at the DNC), and it's a topic that Romney is notably weak on. Even if Romney does "better than expected," Obama should win that debate fairly clearly, with only staunch Republican partisans/Fox News declaring otherwise, particularly because it's been pretty clear that warmongering with Iran is not a popular idea, and Romney/the GOP's hawkish positions don't play as well in 2012 as they might have in, say, 2004.
As long as Romney's bump doesn't get much bigger than it already is, and as long as Biden does his job of blunting Republican momentum, Obama should be in good shape going forward. It is still, as of right now, clearly Obama's race to lose.
