If you want a little background and perspective to what the presidential candidates are saying — as they're saying it — then our "Pop-Up Politics" videos are for you. As VH1 did with music videos, we've added pop-up bubbles and animation to stump speeches to give context to the candidates' statements on the war in Afghanistan, energy and the economy.

Click an image below to launch an animated video. We've included links under the videos to sources, where you can further explore statements and candidate positions. (We recommend Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer 9. Previous versions of IE may not support the sourcing element.)

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.