Well have the latest on this big storm bearing down just a week before the election. Folks, we have our october surprise. Its name is sandy. Good morning from cincinnati. 11 days till election day, friday, october 26th, 2012. This is the daily rundown. Im chuck todd and im still living on the air in cincinnati. So lets get right to my first read. President obama wrapped up a 48hour, 8state battleground blitz in cleveland late last night and with a hoarse voice went after a message hes been dealing all week long. Romneys trustworthiness. Trust matters. You know what, ohio, after all these years, you now know me. You know that i mean what i say. And almost the exactly same moment 150 mys west mitt romney took the starj in one of the great names in battleground politics, defiance, ohio, and he borrowed a page from the president s 2008 page book calling himself the president of change. This is a time when america faces big challenges. We have a big election and we want a president who will actually bring big changes and i will and he wont. Well, we know ohio has been the ultimate bellwether in president ial elections for the last 50 years and the president s been putting a big emphasis on early voting both here and in other battleground states which is why he decided to be the first president , well, early vote and dit yesterday in chicago. We need some i. D. Oh, no. I got my drivers license here. Yes, by law even the president has to show i. D. To vote early in illinois. Meanwhile, both sides are dealing with unexpected lets call them political speed bumps, if you will on the trail. For romney its been indianas Senate Public candidate Richard Mourdock. He ignored questions about him three different times on the trail thursday. Governor, do you wish mourdock would which way are we going . Governor, do you disavow mourdocks comments on rape . Thank you. And in that exclusive interview with brian williams, the president , though, did his best to talk about mourdock and try to capitalize on it. These attempts to redefine rape in some way make no since to me. I think what these episodes point to is the fact that you dont want politicians, majority of them male, making a series of decisions about Womens Health care issues. And in what appears to be an unforced error, if you will, team romney and republicans, National Campaign cochair john sununu who made these e eyebrowraising questions about Colin Powells endorsement of president obama. When you take a look at colin powell, you have to wonder whether thats an endorsement based on issues or whether hes got a slightly different reason for preferring president obama. What reason would that be . Well, i think when you have somebody of your own race that youre proud of being president of the united states, i applaud co colin for standing with him. Racebased endorsement and sununu issued this colin powell is a friend and i respect the endorsement decision he made and i do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president s policies. He didnt deal with that and seemed to claim that wasnt the question. Imagine if the other side had alleged if ross perot made his endorsement of mitt romney solely because mitt romney was white. Anyway, the president has his own set of problems to deal with. Brian williams asked the president whether he was happy with the intelligence he received as the benghazi attack was unfolding and with what he was able to learn in its aftermath. Heres how the president responded. Well do a full investigation. Obviously when four americans are killed, you know, you have to do some soul searching in terms of making sure that all our systems are where they need to be. And then there was this little kerfuffle, in an interview in Rolling Stone he joked he does well in the 6 to 12yearold demographic set and he added, you know kids have good instincts. They look at the other guy and say, well, thats a bser, although he did not shorthand that. Obama campaign admitted that the remark occurred but said it was during a casual conversation at the end of the interview. The campaign did not deny mr. Obama was referring to romney with that little namecalling. Today the president will do ten what i would call get out the vote interviews from the white house including interviews with syndicated radio host Michael Smerconish and april ryan of the American Urban Radio Networks trying to fire up africanamerican voters and sway callaway on mtv targeting young voters there and makes his Closing Argument on the economy and has a speech in ames, wawa before north canton later tonight. Of course, ohio is not just a critical president ial battleground and happens to feature a Contentious Senate race and last night i moderated the third and final debate between ohio senator Sherrod Brown and josh mandel. Outside the studio you can see dozens of supporters chanted slogans and nearly as contentious inside, slightly more polite. You cant close tax loopholes when these companies that outsource jobs. If you sign the Grover Norquist pledge not that your chances going to the senate are that high. For a guy running since president nixon was running, dont you have a couple of good things to say about your own record . Its a fight for the president ial fight but romney has blurred distinctions between his original position on the auto bailout and mandel is running a different race in his very offers a lot of clarity on his position on the auto bailout. Is there a bailout you would have supported . Im not a bailout senator. Theres no government bailout i could think of that i would ever support. If youre watching at home and looking for a bailout senator, thats Sherrod Brown. Would you have not followed what george join rich and i wanted to do with president obama, just let the industry fall apart. I know its good empty slogans and polltested kind of statements but i just wonder what you would have done to help the middle class of the state. Throughout the night mandel attacked brown as a creature of washington, accusing him of washingtonspeak and using that phrase over and tried to distance himself from the National Republican party, mandel. If elected would you vote for the ryan budget plan, yes or no, why or why not . I have not come out in support of that plan and do not have plans to come out in support of it. I will have my own plan when i go to washington to save medicare and save social security. You might have heard that answer before, tom, on eight or ten or 15 different issues. When you go to washington you vote i know this sounds like washingtonspeak to josh but you actually vote yes or no. In a january survey for an antiabortion group right to life, mandel checked yes next to a box asking whether he supports federal and state legislation to ban abortion. He did not check the box that supported any exceptions. The Campaign Says in a subsequent survey he did make it clear he supports a very narrow abortion exception. I do support an exception to protect the life of the mother. Sherrod brown is an extremist on this issue and actually supports tax dollars to fund abortions. Unlike josh i trust ohio women to make their own decisions about about their health care, period. And my opponent has the most extreme position of no exceptions, no exceptions for anything, no exceptions for rape, no exceptions for incest. There are tens of thousands of women in this country, they get pregnant from rapes every year. Finally i asked both candidates what message ohioans would be sending to them if they split their ticket reelecting president obama and putting mandel in office or electing and reelecting senator brown for another term but of picking mitt romney. Heres how they responded to the question. If the voters of the state of ohio go in that direction, i think theyre probably saying that they want to check and balance and dont want someone like brown who will be a rubber stamp and vote with president obama 95 of the time. If that happens they think Sherrod Brown is his own guy, stood up to the president of his own party when it was bill clinton and when its barack obama and, of course, ill work with mitt romney if hes the president of the united states. It was the one thing i came away with in the senate race, the differences were similar as the difference between obama and romney, except they didnt make the same attempts to blur the differences. They both wanted the clarity between their two visions versus what weve been seeing in the last couple of weeks between president obama and mitt romney. Finally as competitive as the race for ohio may be, all theres some conflicting information there are other states that are really closer and its producing a very close race. Our white house senior advice david blouf talked about whether he expected it to be so close. We knew we wouldnt get the same vote as we got in 2008 so this is the race we prepared for. Heres the great thing, in 13 days there will be no more bluffing. One of us is right and one of us is wrong in our position on the race. This morning we have new nbc news wall street journal marist polls. Tied at 48 . Last month the president had a fivepoint advantage and the president is at the magic 50 mark. Romney, though, only trails by three points at 47 all within the margin. The president has been able to stay even with romney by winning big margins with latino voters and leads among them, 63 34 in colorado and winning ready for this with latino voters in neve day by 74 23. Anyway the race for colorado tighteninged. Why has it become such a close race . Romney has gained among key groups since we last polled a month ago by 14 points a month ago, 54 40. Its been cut in half and the president only leads by 7 points. Now, the president led independents, 5039. Now, that 11point margin is a virtual draw and romney is up a point among independents. Leader of the marist poll joins me now. Colorado, we sit here, we talk about ohio, lee, we talk about but colorado, tell me this, what was the raw vote difference between the two because obviously statistically 48 48, a total tie . Single digits. One handful. I think whats interesting, we talked about ohio throughout the campaign as being the bellwether, but, you know, obama is sort of getting in ohio what he got last time. And that may be because of the car industry and the whole auto bailout. Around the rest of the country and in these states looking add today hes not getting anywhere near what he got. Ohio may not be the bellwether but the other swing states and could be exception this time to the pattern. Obama is not getting his marker in these states although theres still obviously very competitive both of them. Nevada, a little more favorable. Look, i want to throw up i want to focus on colorado and spend our time here. Whats interesting, its hispanics versus the suburbs, if you will, romney, big move for him, denver suburbs likely voters here in september, the president led 51 44. Now in this poll we have romney ahead in the denver suburbs, arapaho, skwlefrson county, 5146 and basically the only reason the president doesnt trail when you usually if you lose in the denver suburbs you dont win the state its this massive lead he has among latinos. Not getting his marker among suburban voters, among women voters. When you compare it to last time where he won the state handily so doesnt have to do it this time but it is the latino voters and it is the strength he has at his base, not in these swing voters and the question is, how many are there and whats the early vote . Colorado is a huge early vote state. Threequarters will vote before election day and right now they are also within one point of each other in terms of their preferences, so this just is, you know, if it comes down to colorado, not only will the time zone make it really late for us to tally, but, boy, it may well keep us push us into extra innings. I want to just point out the job Approval Ratings in both states for the president because among likely voters we know job approval and incumbents ballot number are usually the same and look at this. It doesnt lie here. The president s job approval rating, 48 approved. 49 disapprove. That looks like a ballot test and look at nevada. 50 approve of his job, 46 disapprove. You got to you get this feeling that we could just go with job approval rating. Wherever the president is at 49 or 50 he probably carries that state and wherever hes below 49 itll be a total recount state if its sitting at 48 or if its lower than that hell end up losing it. It may very well be that and we also see his right direction of the nation numbers have picked up but then ben mitt romney used to be upside down in terms of his likability. Thats no longer the case, gosh, theres just so many cross currents there and thats why these states are just as close as they could be. All right. Lee, well try to do a whole bucketful of polling in the last week and see how much we can get done. Lee, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir. Much more to come on the daily rundown. Ill take a dive into the down ballot races in a few minutes but, my man, were doing a two qb set and well talk to je nchn saki and gdp is out and improving economy, still time to move voters. Hurricane sandy is on course to blend with a winter storm and wreak havoc on the east coast. The latest on the october surprise that Neither Campaign was waiting for. But first a look ahead at the schedules of mitt romney and president obama. Romney, of course, iowa and ohio today, that big speech in ames and the president , its get out the vote interview day today. Youre watching the daily rundown only on msnbc. Well be right back. Welcome aboard [ chuckles ] [ honk ] [ honk ] [ honk ] [ male announcer ] now youll know when to stop. [ honk ] the allnew Nissan Altima with easy fill tire alert. 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I think weve seen again this week, i dont think any male politician should be making Health Care Decisions for women. I believe women are capable and should make their own Health Care Decisions for themselves. Thats why the Health Care Law we passed puts those choices in your hands where they belong. President obama takes a jab at republican richard muourdocks recent remarks and critical female votersment joining me is jen saki. Good news for you as i showered this morning after two days on the plane. This time around, it seems like you guys are taking a page out of the bush 04 playbook and trying to push these wedge issues, trying to get out your base. Lets look at the gender gap problems youre having. It narrowed. In nevada and colorado from our new nbc news marist poll, in september your victory with women over mitt romney was 14 points in nevada. 16 points in nevada. 14 in colorado. Now down to 6 in nevada and 7 in colorado. Why is this tightening too much . Well, we know there are polls every hour. We dont buy into every poll. The important thing about the clip you just played is that this is a fundamental difference in this race. President obama as you saw heard him say believes women should make their own choices. Doesnt mean we should defund planned parenthood. This issue this with with mr. Mourdock reminded women at whats at stake. Its perplexing to us for days the Romney Campaign has gone into hiding to avoid answering questions because mitt romney is up on the air with an ad for this candidate. But its really about the larger issue of Womens Health. This is a very big issue in a state like colorado. You know, women care very deeply about this across the country but especially there and something well continue to talk about and we expect, you know, this race is going to be very, very close to the end. But we know that women voters when theyre paying attention to the issues and know whats at stake and an opportunity to talk about it, the choice will be clear to them. Is it fair to say when you have such a large debt, 16 trillion debt, you have wars abroad, you have a lot of folks have a ton of economic anxiety here your message in the last ten days of the campaign seems to be about Womens Health. This is really trying to turn out the base. No, look, this is an issue the president talks about. He couldnt hold himself back from speaking to this given how outrageous the comments were but 99 of what the president talks about every single day is what hes done to help bring this economy back from the brink of collapse and what he wants to do moving forward. Hes been waving around his plan that hes been talking about since the convention, hes talked about continuing to create manufacturing jobs, increasing oil imports, winding down our war in afghanistan. This race is about the economy, thats what he talks about every day. But, look, there are issues that perk womens ears across this country and the comments of somebody like mr. Mourdock and the lack of response from the romney team, i think that wakes people up. Lets talk about another issue the president is having where numbers have tightened immensely with the white voters. Recent the Washington Post poll said this, nearly half of all those who supported obama in 2008 but now say they back romney are white independents. Overall, whites make up more than 90 of such vote switchers. Why such a fall from grace from presiden