Vice President Joe Biden has a tough task tonight in his face-off with Rep. Paul Ryan Thursday night.
He's the far more experienced politician, but his skills are overrated.
As a primary candidate in 2008, Biden had many chances to break through the pack and decisively challenge either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (or even John Edwards). He failed.
In the general election that same year, against the ill-equipped Sarah Palin of all people, he laid only half a glove on her.
Add to that the fact that, like President Obama, Biden is likely to be rusty after three years on the job and too few challenging TV interviews of late.
On the stump, Biden's said a long string of sloppy things which he's tried to embrace as bold bits of candor. He offers himself as just a hardscrabble guy from Scranton who doesn't always say exactly the right thing but whose heart is always in the right place.
Some buy it - he's a likable guy with a glint in his eye - but there's no doubt his stature has slipped as he's gone from elder statesman to frequent punchline.
Add to that the fact that Biden has a habit of using a few expressions - "God love 'im," "look," "literally" - as crutches, even more than the typical politician. It's distracting.
Add to that the fact that the pressure is on Biden to break the Obama campaign's fall from post-convention heights to post-debate lows. This isn't panic time yet for the Democrats - they still have the advantage in most electoral maps - but there is no doubt that in the brightest, hottest spotlight, Romney dealt Obama a serious blow.
The Denver debate loss wasn't a gimmick or a gaffe. Romney credibly tacked to the middle and convinced many moderates that he's a safe vote with new economic ideas.
The campaign can't afford a second stumble with millions watching.
Ryan is vulnerable on substance. In the House, he put forward a budget, about as unpopular as Congress itself, that would cut taxes for the wealthy and remake Medicare. Hot off the presses, it was the pride of the Republican Party; now, Romney has shelved the less popular pieces in search of swing state votes.
That $716 billion in supposedly devastating Obama Medicare "cuts" you've heard so much about? They were in Ryan's budget.
Ryan's convention speech was fairly savaged for its brazen dishonesty.
Example: When he mentioned the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission, whose plan was left hanging out to dry by the President after he set it up (Iraq Study Group-style), Ryan conveniently omitted that he himself had been a member of the commission - and walked away because it included tax increases.
It's a consistent pattern with Ryan: talk like a what-me-divide pragmatist, act like an inflexible ideologue.
Also, Ryan is to the right of Romney on most social issues, which have taken a backseat for most of the election so far, and relatively weak on foreign policy, where Biden knows the players and the plays.
The question is whether Biden, whose strength is in connecting with voters at a gut level rather than in scoring points, can take advantage of this.
It strikes me as a bad matchup for the veep. He's a power hitter up against a finesse pitcher.
Ryan's got a friendly face, a fast tongue and a sunny demeanor. He's no Dick Cheney, no Dan Quayle, no Sarah Palin.
To succeed, Biden can't count on flustering his opponent or out-charming him. The Ryan reputation for budgetary brilliance is more packaging than substance, but Biden needs precision to take it apart.
He'll have to calmly zero in on a few key facts and dismantle what the Obama campaign considers Romney-Ryan myths.
Meantime, he'll have to systematically convince voters that the Obama-Biden record and their plans for the future are centrist and responsible, and that their opponents are the ones taking unnecessary risks at home and abroad.
No doubt a vice-presidential candidate like Al Gore or John Kerry could meet this challenge.
Biden? We'll see Thursday night.
