Final Presidential Debate!!

One more debate, and then it's on to the polls......

What Romney Needs to Do

• Finish strong.  Even though the President was a lot more aggressive (and successful) in the second debate, Romney still has a good deal of momentum going for him.  He needs to finish out this debate without making a fool of himself.  If he makes a huge blunder (such as Gerald Ford's gaffe over the Soviet Union) that could haunt him until election day.  He has made gains on the President to be sure, but that can be undone with a major misstep here.
• Romney needs to highlight the Obama Administration's mistakes on Libya, but avoid getting forceful with it.  This will be a really difficult line for him to walk.  The issue will no doubt come up, but I think voters are getting a bit tired of it.  It's not good for Romney because he was essentially correct in his assertions in the second debate, but was incorrectly overruled by the moderator.  So the voting bloc doesn't necessarily understand the gravity of the administration's missteps, but I'm not sure voters want to see Romney going 'attack dog' on the President about this issue again.  But Romney still needs to correct the record about it.
• At the very minimum, remain competent.  Voters seem pleased that he has been competent and presidential in the previous two debates which to me is feeding his surge.  The first two debates covered mostly domestic issues.  If voters believe he can deal with international issues with the same competency, it will only help him.

What Obama Needs to Do

• Obama needs a great performance.  Most people seem to believe he 'won' the second debate, but not as decisively as Romney won the first.  The President needs to come out and prove that he can restore American credibility over seas.  
• The President needs to explain his plan for the next four years when it comes to the Middle East.  He needs a grand vision of what he views America's role in the world as.  People are well aware of the conflicts in the Middle East and the President needs to convince voters has a plan for how American influence will either be used or not used in his grand Middle Eastern strategy.
• It isn't the President's job to rip the challenger apart.  He needs to present a grand vision, and be able to explain how events in the past did not come as a surprise to his Administration.  It won't be enough to talk in grand platitudes as he normally does, he needs to get specific.  Campaign slogans such as "Heal the World" won't work in 2012 as they did in 2008.  Somehow the world seems a much more violent place and the President needs to explain how the past 4 years weren't a result of his bungling, and how the next 4 years will be impacted by his vision.

5 Predictions

1. I don't expect either campaign to follow my advice as if they were reading this to begin with.  So my first prediction is I'll be wrong on my most of my ideas in the above sections.
2. Obama is going to be aggressive.  He'll be driving the tempo of the debate.  
3. Obama will reference Mitt Romney's international trip earlier this summer at least once in an attempt to discredit his ability to be an international leader.
4. Romney will wait for the moderator to bring up Libya.  Hopefully his people are telling him that he needs to avoid coming off as though he is berating the President of the United States, and this would be an easy way to accomplish that.  There is little doubt the moderator will have some sort of question surrounding the Libya ordeal, so it would be safe for Mitt to stay focused on the other questions without jumping to Libya every time.
5. The debate will end in a tie.  I don't expect Mitt will come out swinging, but he will match the President's level of enthusiasm.  If the President starts swinging, Romney will swing back.  To voters I expect that'll come across as a tie.