Free advice is, well, free advice. But I would say this to Governor Romney: In your gentlemanly fashion, get on the offense quickly tonight, and put President Obama on the defense.

Play the leadership card: “No leadership on the anemic economy. No leadership on the grand-bargain talks with Speaker Boehner, where a great opportunity was blown with your last-minute $400 billion tax hike. No leadership on Simpson-Bowles. No leadership on the credit downgrade.

“And no leadership on the Benghazi catastrophe, where our ambassador was killed and dragged through the streets. Security broke down. If you had read your intel briefing, you would have seen the threat ahead of time. And then you went off to a Las Vegas fundraiser. And then came the cover-up, led by Susan Rice’s five-Sunday-talk-show lying fiasco.”

Push your tax-cut plan, Governor Romney. Across-the-board rate reductions. Don’t be afraid to sell it. Talk to the middle class, who will get a huge increase in take-home pay as a result of your tax plan, during a period when incomes are falling (as Joe Biden correctly stated) . And say that there will be no tax hikes for the middle class.

Talk growth. Growth, growth, growth.

Red line the middle-class tax deductions and explain that the tax-rate cuts for the upper end, which will spur economic and investment incentives for growth, will be balanced with a significant loss of this group’s unnecessary tax deductions.

And back all that up with a strong sell on spending cuts that along with faster 4 percent economic growth and 12 million new jobs will bring the deficit and debt GDP ratios way down.

Growth, growth, growth.

By the way, don’t forget the corporate tax cut to 25% from 35%. Put in some sound money, too, to stop the Fed’s assault against the dollar.

Be a free-market, free-enterprise visionary. Emphasize opportunity over class warfare. Emphasize employment rather than government dependency.

Emphasize American exceptionalism, at home and abroad.