Showing that on substance, they've got nothing, Republicans are set to spend the day arguing that Joe Biden lost Thursday night's debate because he laughed at Paul Ryan. In fact, undecided voters thought Biden won, according to a CBS poll and an NBC focus group. But Republicans seem to be hoping that if they spin a retroactive win in the media, what actually happened will matter less.

Strategy one is misdirection: the attempt to get the media to focus on the fact that Biden laughed rather than what he was laughing at so that Ryan gets a pass. In that vein, the RNC put together a web video of Biden laughing [where the comments of Ryan's included in the video were not the comments Biden was laughing at].

Strategy two is blaming the moderator.