party, none of whom, by the way, have the courage to look a rape victim in the eye and say it to her. they don t say it to women. they say it in general about women. in general. and romney doesn t have the guts to tell them no. this was his moment to show leadership. he failed again. krystal, how do you explain the new ap poll that suggests romney has been able to erase the gender gap among women. it has him tied with the president. and it has the president tied with romney among men, neither of which is an accurate reflection of where we actually are. this poll is an outlier. it s open for debate how wide the gender gap is, but the fact that one still exists i think is pretty apparent, and to joy s point about the political fallout, i think you re right. i think it does go to a question of character and leadership. we saw mitt romney fail in this area when sandra fluke was attacked by rush limbaugh and he was unable to condemn those
it s not just the richard mourdock stuff. there s a million and one follow-up questions to the last three debates, including the one we watched together in boca. he said we don t want any more iraq wars, remember that line? i do. i d love to see someone come up and say you supported the iraq war. do you think it s not a good thing? it wasn t a good thing in is that why you don t want any more? can you please explain yourself, governor romney? you know, reporters like you and i and michael, we crave the opportunity to grill these guys and mitt romney has nothing to gain. i was about to say nothing to bain. nothing to gain from questions about bain or anything else. indeed, that s true. this isn t the first time the romney campaign has stopped taking questions. he once went over a month starting in march without taking a single question from a reporter. he says that democrats want to talk about abortion because there s is a shrinking campaign, but romney doesn t want to talk about
going to be, some bombshell about drug use or marital problems? he had nothing at all but it was pleasant so see this time that he was denounced not from the left, but just from everybody, and i think they just want donald trump to go away. he s going to have trouble doing this again. goldie, wasn t donald s bonl shell though just another variation on his favorite dog whistle? he talks about the president s academic records because what he s implying is affirmative action, despite all the evidence, he suggests this president doesn t have the intellectual merit to qualify as president. you know, i predicted this last year when i talked about him in my video show me your papers. donald trump is never going to be finished with this president. he was soundly, roundly ewe mill yated at the white house press correspondent s dinner. donald trump is still smarting from that. wile e. coyote sets a better trap than donald trump.
attacks, but it serves as a reminder how extreme the republican party is on this issue. it reminds women of todd akin and the platform. it reminds them of their discomfort with mitt romney being the one that picks the next supreme court justice. so at this time in the campaign it could not be a worse moment for romney. joy, also reminds me that paul ryan, who is on the ticket, is a co-sponsor with todd akin of legislation in this regard. absolutely. the personhood amendments, the stuff about saying it would be almost a felony i guess for a woman to get an abortion. look how he parses it when ryan describes, well, romney is the head of the ticket and he supports exceptions for rape and incest because, you know what? ryan doesn t. there isn t a dime s worth of difference between paul ryan s beliefs on this issues and mr. mourdock s. even if you look in that poll, i think they re instructive even when year outliers. in overall voters obama is ahead 48/40.
there s no more serious issue on a presidential campaign than trust. trust matters. and here s the thing. iowa, you know me. you know you know that i say what i mean. and i mean what i say. there s some folks in this crowd who have probably been following me since i was running for the united states senate. and you know what? you can like this guy right here who i served with in the united states senate, george. and you could take a videotape of things i said 10 years ago, 12 years ago and you would say, man this is the same guy. has the same values. cares about the same people. doesn t forget where he came from. knows who he s fighting for. and you know what?