killed it. the first format lent itself to that approach. right. this format clearly didn t. no, it definitely didn t. the other thing to keep in mind with women and why they didn t move as much after that debate is a lot of us, me included, if you look at what women are concerned about, it is not just gender and social issues. it s the economy. and for all his flubs and aggression in that debate, romney did have a few fairly clear effective moments. why aren t we doing better? we can do better if i m elected. don t pass the debt and deficit onto your kids that i think resonated. stan greenberg s done a lot of research tested after these debates on women and what they care about. the economy was a big issue. and we don t think of that. he really cleaned up, mika. romney did, even though he lost the debate on points for a lot of people, he won by i think the cbs poll by 30 points on who can handle the economy. and the outcome surely not as clear as the last one because you can
we re looking at some of the numbers that don t make sense. i m talking specifically reporter: they surprised me, yep. the eight points in iowa. you look at a gallup poll nationally that has romney up by seven points. you look at a couple of pennsylvania polls that have the president only up by three. ed and i don t buy any of those. this isn t about nbc news. this isn t about the pennsylvania polls or gallup specifically. reporter: yeah. but there seems to be a ghost in the machine this year, unlike any other year. what is causing pollsters fits? reporter: i think it s the early vote, okay? and if you look at when the campaigns have questioned our numbers, if they liked it one way or the other, it s always been on the early vote and whether it s in ohio, think about the states that have a huge early vote. ohio, iowa, florida, north carolina. and i think, and that s been apparently an issue withingly
and so is it making the sample too much weighted in one direction or the other? i think these are all fair questions, and i, frankly, think that when you look at the polls that one side or the other is questioning the most, the common denominator is this uncertainty around how to factor in the early vote. and i think that and, again, it s an outsized issue in four specific it will be five states, if you will, throw in colorado, but it s an outside issue outsized issue particularly in iowa, ohio, and it will be in florida as things march on. and i think it s going to create this feeling that there are going to be days they re going, where s everything going? right. trend lines and each pollster matter. and i think that does matter as well. so that in itself is worth following along. but i m not going to tell you that i m going to sit here and say that i look at our numbers and say oh, that s exactly where i thought the race you know, you re right. i was surprised.
we d rather be us than them. so i think it s important for us to have that level of caution. one area, we talk about female voters, the gender gap, the obama campaign maintains it s still in their favor. and some of our polling bears that out. we ve seen other polling that says no, mitt romney has tightened that. just look at what president obama is doing on the stump. he s talking now daily about planned parenthood and romney s promise to cut planned parenthood funding. they want to really drill down on that issue. they want to make sure that a key part of their coalition is still with them by hammering home on that issue. and as you know, the romney campaign thinks, fine, focus on contraception or abortion. the economy will sway most women as governor romney talks about. you know, david, i m so glad you brought up 2004 because we re not only talking about the week before, i remember the night of. i was sitting on set. we were about to go on the air. and everybody looked at all the
figure out who s winning, who s losing. i sat there thinking, we re all losing. this is joyless. these people are spitting out numbers, and there s no connection to the heart of america, whether it s the liberal heart of america or the conservative heart or the middle of america. they just seem joyless. yeah. look, it wasn t about joy. yeah. i don t think either of them went in expecting joy. obama, obviously, thought he had a lot of ground to make up. and he made up a lot of ground. i mean, he won the debate. romney wanted to continue to have another strong performance. and he had another pretty strong performance, you know. it wasn t as good as obama s, but so it was mano a mano, and i don t think either in a mood to try to make jokes. in fact, it probably would have been embarrassing if they had tried, given that setting. well, that s actually i hate to be the debbie downer at the table again. oh, go ahead. oh, go ahead. these are serious times, tina