to fix it. >> right. >> all of it. >> all of it. >> midwest firewall, 18 days to go our polls. today while romney preps for the final debate, the president is hitting him hard in virginia. >> we've got to name this condition that he's going through. i think -- i think it's called romnesia. that's what it's called. i think that's what he's going through. i'm not a medical doctor, but i do want to go over some of the symptoms with you because i want to make sure nobody else catches it. >> mitt romney and paul ryan are both in florida and they caught a key endorsement from "the "orlando sentinel"" today. and what a kick. >> that was a high schooler, a washington state high school football player kicking his way into the record books, nailing a 6-yard field goal. what a kick indeed. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. it is back to the battleground states after a night of comedy in new york. and white ties an tails. let's get back to our daily fix, joining me in person, chris cizilla and msnbc contributor managing editor of the "washington post" post politics and, of course, our own mark murray. deputy political editor. thank you both very much. >> sure. >> mark to you first, the nbc/marist poll, iowa and wisconsin, the top line and also the internals what are you seeing there in this firewall really, the midwest some. >> president obama has leads in iowa and wisconsin and by eight points in iowa, six points in wisconsin and if you basically say he's also ahead in ohio, basically winning those three states gets him beyond 270 electoral votes. that is the midwest firewall. i will tell you we got a lot of comments from the romney campaign who say look, we think the race in iowa is much, much closer. they're actually pointing to some of the internal numbers that show that the early voting is maybe a little overstating president obama's case, that so far about 19% of the ballots that are in our poll had 34% of likely voters saying they voted early. that matches up with the number of ballots requested. getting into the internals people are arguing i would just recommend everyone this is going to be a close race in the midwest, even in those three states. >> if iowa and ohio were not as important as they are, we would not see so much campaign activity. joe biden is practically moving to iowa next week. >> i always say look at where they go at this point. they will not go anywhere, any of the four of them, obama, biden, romney or paul ryan, that they don't think they need. a good example, president obama in new hampshire yesterday. it's four electoral votes. it tells you to mark's point, they are just trying to make sure, every one of those matters. he's not going to win with 365 electoral vote -- >> and remember that george w. bush won with 271 electoral votes in 2000. one more than he needed to win. you know, this is a numbers game and they're playing it right now. >> and let's look at the break that they did take. my own, you know, feeling in watching the al smith dinner and just seeing these two men trading jokes, rather than trading jabs, was that, you know, americans were really turned off by how much they got into each other's face in that debate and this may be be something that makes people feel, everything is okay, because our leaders can actually joke and get dressed up and have a night out. let's watch. >> win or lose, this is my last political campaign, so i'm trying to drink it all in. unfortunately, mayor bloomberg will only let me have 16 ounces of it. >> in the spirit of sesame street the president's remarks are brought to you by the letter "o" and the number 16 trillion. >> here you are, where they are all dressed up and in a way that most americans cannot relate to but in a good cause, catholic charities, the amazing work they do there. what is the wisdom of the president going on jon stewart where he's speaking to his base and then getting a serious question as you will get from jon stewart, a serious person about benghazi, and adopting the answer the word optimal from jon stewart's question to give him that, but it's still shows a lack of command of the moment. take a look at this. >> i would say even you would admit it with you not the optimal response, at least to the american people, as far as us all being on the same page. >> here's what i'll say. >> yeah. >> if four americans get killed, it's not optimal. >> right. >> and we're going to fix it. >> right. >> and -- >> all of it. >> all of it. >> and john mccain and others are all over him. let's watch what john mccain said on fox today. >> the optimal line, of course, is very regrettable and makes me a little sad, but for him to say that every piece of information that they got they laid out to the american people, is one of the most disingenuous statements i've ever heard. >> chris. >> yeah. >> the ap has a story which pulls together a lot of threads, the white house is pushing back it doesn't have anything new, but threads there was real-time information which we've been told at the state department, briefed on that ten days ago, they had an open line from benghazi as the attack was taking place to both tripoli and washington. intelligence people, officials, in both washington and tripoli knew it was not a protest, it was an invasion that night. they had conflicting information from people on the streets saying the video was involved and so that's where the am ambiguity came in. >> without ambiguity the number of stories that have come out of the administration in terms of what they knew and how they knew it it's clear that right hand and left hand weren't talking. whether that was malevolent or didn't work out properly, it seems we can conclude that. what i would say, just back to your point, andrea, this is someone who has been elected the president of the united states, be he beat hillary clinton, the dominant figure in the democratic party in a primary. why would you repeat the word optimal? he has to understand that -- i understand it was in jon stewart's question, but why repeat it? a basic mistakes politicians don't use. >> to button it down, he knew he was on his way to the al smith dinner, but the fact is he better have a better presentation on this subject monday night and be the commander in chief. >> well, we saw that actually at the debate on tuesday night. that was probably maybe his best exchange. >> exactly. >> but i would say look at president obama's tone. i really think that transcript, that optimal read worse than the tone where he took optimal and said jon stewart we're going to fix that. >> serious and sober. >> than just read the pool report of that remark. >> thank you very much. mark murray starting us. chris cizilla as always. joining me senator kay bailey huchlensonp aren from texas, strong romney supporters and leader in the senate. >> thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> do you think we're making too much, that john mccain made too much of the word optimal given the fact that, you know, this is a word, we clearly know that president understands the seriousness of losing four americans including chris stevens who he knew personally very well? >> andrea, i'm not focused as much on the exchange with jon stewart as i am about the -- i think disingenuous answer that the president gave at the debate. you know, the senate gets the top secret briefings and even after the press was putting the timelines together and it was really well known that this was not some spontaneous uprising, it was a planned attack, it was in every media, yet in our briefings to congress, that we were getting from the cia officials and the state department officials, was saying the same thing that the president was trying to put over as the reason this video. and i think that's the most troubling part of this. that it was more let's not go there, we don't want to have this be a political issue, rather than this is a terrorist attack and i'm going to stand up for america. >> well, there was the briefing from -- to the senate in open session from matthew olson, the counterterrorism official who said it was terror attack and the president did refer to it that way twice in that first week. others said other things as we know. >> the president did not say that in the first white house briefing, he generally talked about any act of terror is going to be met, but he didn't say what was clearly out there. >> senator he did -- he linked it to the four diplomats. >> susan rice -- well, we had a briefing in which we were misled and it was not an open briefing. and that's wrong. that is just wrong. and furthermore, he sent his ambassador to the united nations out on five shows which you know is a white house decision, saying when it was in the news and it was very clear, saying that it was just this spontaneous uprising. that's just not the way a president should hand al crisis like this. we all understand the terrorist attacks and the need for america to come together but that's not what happened here. >> and senator, let me also ask you about the -- both campaigns going after the women's vote, particularly white college educated women who many say are going to be determining in this campaign. our new poll shows there is still a very large gender gap in the president's favor. obviously mitt romney and republicans traditionally certainly this republican candidate has a big male gender gap but the women's gap seems to be persistently in the president's favor in our latest polls. other polls show different things. where do you see the women's vote and the argument over whether women care more about health care, reproductive rights or the economy? >> well, i believe that it is the economy and it is the jobs. millions of women are unemployed, cannot get the good work that they need and even maybe more hurtful is that they have worked to educate their children and send them to college, maybe work two jobs to do that and their children aren't getting jobs. i have many acquaintances and friends whose children have graduated from college and have internships that pay little or nothing an they're glad just to have the internship. that's not what we need to put up with for four more years. we can do better than that in this country. and i think that is what is resonating with women as well as men and college students who are looking at the job market and saying, do we really want four more years of the same thing which is what president obama is offering. the same thing. well it's going to get better. doing the spending, keeping the regulations high, keeping the talk of more taxes on small business going. that's not what we need. we need to have a change in this country that says less regulation, less government, fewer taxes on small business and something that encourages hiring. >> finally before i let you go, let me ask you about ate the abortion question and contraception. mitt romney says he favors access to contraception for all women. sentence that disingenuous in that he has already -- he said previously he would support the blunt amendment which would give employers a way of opting out. he also has an ad up, a new romney ad yesterday, saying that he favors exceptions for rape and incest and the life of the mother in the case of abortion. but during the debates in the primaries, he said that he would favor signing legislation to outlaw roe v. wade. so isn't he really sending one message to women now, another message in the primaries. isn't this disingenuous on the part of governor romney. >> let me take the blunt amendment and contraception. i think that what mitt romney is saying now is the same as he has said, that women should have access to birth control of their choice. the blunt amendment dealt with a religious exception. if it is a religious based hospital or charity. >> it's also employers. other employers. >> the employers of those charities and those hospitals that are religious based should have the option of not covering that with insurance. that doesn't mean they wouldn't still have access and -- >> if they could afford it. that's a big expense outside of their employee-based insurance. >> well, i think that if they choose to work, if they are, say, catholic and choose to work in a catholic hospital, i think the catholic hospital should have the right to exercise something that's so much a part of their religious beliefs and that's what the blunt amendment did. and i don't think mitt romney has changed his view on that at all. i think he does believe in that access and would stand up for that. >> thank you very much. kay bailey hutchison. good to see you. >> thank you. >> up next, msnbc's rachel maddow on the campaign for women and what to watch for in monday night's final debate. stay with us. and join us monday live in boca raton, florida, for complete coverage of the presidential debate. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. 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[ male announcer ] get investing advice for your family at e-trade. you couldn't miss the targets of the campaigns, both campaigns during the last few days targeting women, especially college educated white women, who started taking a fresh look some say some polls say at least at mitt romney after the denver debate. and if those polls are correct that was a real warning sign. serious enough to send off alarms inside the obama campaign. joining me now, my colleague and friend, rachel maddow host of "the rachel maddow show" to talk about where we stand 18 days out, you'll be talking about the boca debate. what is your sense of the campaign right now? is a lot of this noise or is there a narrative here and still momentum on mitt romney's side coming out of the denver debate? >> you know, right now we're at such an unsettled point in the campaign. i was struck by what chris aliz sa said how why have you to watch where the candidates are putting themselves to know what campaigns think about what where they need to make up the most ground, not where they say but where they go. that is complicated by the fact that both of these campaigns are spending so much time with their candidates doing debate prep. mitt romney did zero campaign events yesterday. he spoke at the al smith dinner but that was it. today he's got precisely one event on his schedule and it is not until 8:30 p.m. president obama has been doing more events than mitt romney, but today he had that one big event this morning, the big rally where he did the rom dnesia riff but that's it because they are locked down. nobody thinks foreign policy is the central issue of the campaign but by virtue it's the last debate when the race is this close puts such a hot spotlight on foreign policy, for candidates who haven't been debating that at all for the past year. >> and you could argue that whoever actually makes the economic argument which foreign policy is, it's a global economy, and if mitt romney or president obama makes that as an economic argument, you can also work that into the debate and bob schieffer will most likely as well as the moderator, an experienced moderator at that. let's talk about the women's thing. amuses me when a lot of people talk about what women want and how to reach the woman voter, is it the economy and health care and isn't there a merging of these issues and there is a pocketbook overlap that does affect women when you talk about health care and reproductive health. >> yes. that is i think a lot of -- the less smart political annualysisn our country says that you have to make a choice between social issues and economic issues when you're talking to women and that -- i think the romney campaign just decided early on that they would be able to sort of allow all of these questions about the newfound conservatism of the republican party on issues like contraception and traditional stance they have on choice. they thought they would allow those issues and make it about the economy. these issues are absolutely linked. think about the way it came up in the context of fair pay for women at the last debate. they were both candidates asked direct question, do you support fair pay for women. do you support efforts to try to ensure that. and mitt romney's response, you know, he went into the binders of full of women anecdote but his overall argument was that women are a burden in the work force, that they are -- it is a pain to have a woman as an employee. they have to go home and cook dinner for their children in a way men never did. >> at 5:00. >> his answer, his argument was we need an economy that is so strong, that employers will be desperate for employees and so they'll be willing even to hire women. and you know what, if that's your view about women in the work force, you would be better off talking about abortion. it's not an attractive argument for women voters. >> you know, if fairness to governor romney we circle back to katherine fenton, the 24-year-old who asked that question and she said neither candidate really responded to her question about pay inequity. i think the president was trying to run through all of the effective points he hadn't made in denver and they didn't really respond as effectively as they could have. >> and the president -- >> to the questions themselves. >> the president on issues like that, the way it seems to me is that he feels like everybody must know that he signed the lilly ledbetter fair act on his first day in office and this what is that did and why it was important in terms of women trying to get equal -- trying to get recourse for equal pay discrimination in the courts. he feels like people knows that about his record and he didn't spell that out. just mentioned it and moved on to other issues he thought might be important to women voters. as we get closer to date you get more people paying attention who have not paid attention to anything else in politics all year long. you have to start at square one with every answer. >> from years of covering politics and being out on instrumentp with the -- stump with the candidates we used to roll our eyes when bill clinton would say at campaign appearance after campaign appearance in 1992, you're going to have seven or eight jobs, the economy is changing, we have to get used to this. you know, we would say this is the same old stump speech but it's new every time to those people and ronald reagan, the same thing. the repetitiveness of this is what i did about the auto bailout, tell people what you did and how that relates to your next agenda. i don't think arguably that either candidate has really driven those points home and we have 18 days left to do it. just on foreign policy, a lot of things can happen between now and november 6th. but doesn't the president have to get this benghazi story straight and have a real narrative, not wait for the investigation, have an explanation of what went wrong and what won't go round the next time around. >> i think the conversation that you just had with kay bailey hutchison was instructive. the discussion about benghazi has deteriorated to the point it's literally on fox news they were trying to litigate calling something an act of terror is the same as calling it a terror act. we're getting down to this parsing