As Rich Lowry points out over at National Review, Obama’s job approval is down to 48% in both the Rasmussen and Gallup tracking polls. His RCP job approval average is 49% which is at the low end of where he has been since the Democratic convention (though the movement has been within a very, very narrow band.) If Obama’s job approval rating is 50% on election day it will be tough for Romney to win. If Obama’s job approval is in the 47% range and Romney plays mistake free and seems to have plausible arguments, then it is a tossup or maybe even a slight Romney edge. The VP debate doesn’t seem to have moved the numbers (has a VP debate ever done that?), but it did reset the conversation somewhat. The story is no longer about what a pitiful, desperate weakling Obama was at the last debate. The story isn’t about the VP debate either. To the extent that the shows had a theme it was about the administration’s Libya lies. Maybe Biden’s own Libya lies (or at best dissembling) at the debate made it a bigger story than it otherwise would have been.
