What Obama has to do to win:

1. He needs to appear aggressive and attack Romney and his winner-take-all society.
2. He needs to have energy, confidence, and that twinkle in his eye.
3. He needs to specifically hit Romney on his 47% comments.
4. He also needs to specifically hit Romney on his activities at Bain Capital.
5. He needs to compare Romney to Bush and the neo-conservative foreign policy agenda.

What Romney has to do to win:

1. He needs to hammer Obama on Benghazi and other foreign policy issues.
2. He needs to act presidential and handle himself as he did during the first debate.
3. He needs to come across as moderate on social issues (abortion and same-sex marriage).
4. He needs to emphasize where exactly his policies differ from Obama’s.
5. He needs to compare Obama to a weak and ineffective leader like Jimmy Carter.

Prediction:

In a nutshell, Obama will come out with more fire.  Romney will stand firm in the wave of attacks.

The press will report that Obama has made a slight comeback.  Obama can’t do any worse than he did in the first debate, so it’s nowhere but up for him.  Romney has to be steady and emphasis why he’s different from Obama.  He just needs to not mess up.

In the end, the press will also report that it was basically a draw, though, again, the slight edge will go to Obama because he basically wasn’t asleep at the podium like he was a few weeks ago.

But who knows.  Romney is known for dropping incredible gaffes.  All it takes is one really stupid in front of the camera to ruin any politician.