are going to happen. right now i am joined by richard kim, my colleague at "the nation magazine." anna marie cox. the u.s. version of the guardian. george pack ner, staff writer for "the new yorker" and author of a fascinating story in next week's issue about a former lobbyist who has become disillusioned. a we are ten days away from the presidential election. president obama seems to be steadily regaining a narrow lead, a lead he held over mitt romney before the presidential debates began earlier this month. the latest polling averages according to nate silver of "the new york times" give president obama 50.3 with mitt romney 48.6. president obama has a 74% chance of winning the election based on his strong performance in several swing states. the president is hoping to capitalize on the momentum to encourage voters to go to the polls as soon as possible by taking advantage of early voting. as of this morning, more than 10.5 million people have already cast their ballots including the president himself. president obama flew back to chicago on thursday to take advantage of early voting in illinois becoming the first sitting president in history to cast a ballot early. mitt romney's campaign, meanwhile, has been buffeted by a series of things that happened to put him on defensive. richard mourdock, who romney has endorsed, became the latest gop candidate to make con throw versal comments about rape. john sununu suggested that former secretary of state colin powell had crossed party lines to endorse president obama because of the president's race. i think what we're seeing in the race is essentially the race regressing to the mean. it's basically the race going to what its stable equilibrium is. if you go back and you look at the nate silver model, the role that nate silver's model plays in the psychology of liberals is a topic we could do a whole show on. people are wearing out their mouse button by clicking refresh. basically the race is where it was in june. i mean, so everything that was, you know, before everyone started campaigning, right, mitt romney gets the nomination, you basically have the race and then you have brrrrrr the race and now we're back to where we are essentially. what's been fascinating is this meta battle over momentum. i am fascinated by the amount of energy and labor being put in by both campaigns trying to spin it that they are winning when people are going to vote. like i really honestly don't get it. >> especially when you think about the fact that momentum is a construct that has no application in polling. it's a physical thing. there is no such thing as having momentum in a poll. things change all the time. >> right. >> i do think it's endearing that people put so much faith in nate silver's model. i think he finds it so upsetting. people put him in a place where his whole model is this is not that much faith. >> first of all, there's been like a nate silver backlash. >> yes. >> go through this thing of the way that basically the campaign -- there's not new news being made on the campaign for the most part. the candidates are talking about we're in the home stretch. people have been putting all that energy into poll reading and poll spinning and so there's this entire right wing world of people who are doing nate silver sitcoms. >> the nate silver truism. >> exactly. >> i disagree. i think momentum is critical if you're the romney campaign. it's perception. it might not be real as you pointed out as a construct, but the romney campaign has really created a narrative. >> they've been trying hard to, yes. >> we are on the a sen den si. we have won the debates. we showed that we are capable of running the country, being commander in chief. i think that these rallies that they have where you get pictures of ginormous -- >> they photo shopped yesterday. >> i heard that. my point is i think momentum is something the romney campaign definitely sees inevitability and the obama campaign -- >> but the big question, is there a causal relationship? this to me remains the undetermined thing. we'll talk to a political scientist who studies undecided voters in a little bit. it's a question, is there actually causal relationship between this perception and momentum and pushing people off the fence? >> momentum is all generated from national polls. you look at the washington national poll, gallup poll, none of that matters. it's down to six swing states, i think three or four that are really, really in play. in those as nate said, it's been even steadier. to freak out about romney getting 50%, even the white vote sort of going away from obama to romney, four states, four or five states, that's really where, you know, all of this matters. it's a little like cable news pundants after debates talking about how people out there in the country are going to see this debate. they have no idea. >> how dare they? >> they're looking at their blackberry which is getting text and e-mails from, who? other consultants from the campaign. it's a weird closed loop that pretends to have a relation to the electorate. >> you said something in the greenroom which hopefully you didn't say to me in confidence. >> if so i'll never be on the show again. >> you said to me in the greenroom, there is a feedback loop. that you as a political reporter, i have had this skpeerps too, showing up to talk to voters. just knocking on the doors. the things you get back from them are them saying what they heard on the news. >> here's the point. we've had the same political story in this country for 12 years. we are an evenly divided country. the obama election in 2008 was a little bit of an exception because of the disaster in the bush years. you said we've gone back to the default or steady state. we've gone back to where we were in 2000. there's a story in the new york post how there might be a split. what does that remind you of? how many different ways can journalists and others talk about that story after 12 years. >> one thing on the momentum story, when they do that, they're playing against each other. they're leaving voters out of the equation. they're trying to convince each other they have momentum. in 2000 bush made a big deal of making a play in california. literally, that was playing to the gore team to get them to devote resources to places they didn't need to devote resources. nothing about voters. >> that's the strategic aim. there's a finite set of resources and you are deploying that in a strategic party in terms of do you put the marginal dollar in ohio, nevada, colorado. psyching them out has some actual value. >> he raises a very important point and i think it's true. the 2000 election model is probably where we are. i've been saying this for weeks. people have been laughing at me. romney might win that popular vote and obama makes us win the electoral college. >> we're going to be critical. >> i would be happy to have that discussion. >> we at the nation magazine have been calling for the abolition of the electoral college. if that's what happens, we should rethink that. >> convenience. >> i do think there's a remote chance that that's the scenario, left/right coalition. they'll have the tea party really freaked out. they already questioned the legitimacy of the 2008 election which is indisputable. they have a point there. they have a kernel of truth about the populus will being denied and it happened in 2000, it could happen in 2012. >> on tomorrow's show we're going to have your colleague, rick hurtsberg, we're going to talk about the electoral college, why it's there. >> how we can't get rid of it. >> we're stuck. >> there's an incredibly clever way around that that akila martin has come up with. >> you're talking like a republican. >> no, not with an amendment. state law. here's another thing that happened this week. we all know about the mourdock quote about rape. i'll play that in a second. we'll talk about that later. there's a lena dunham ad. she's a young writer and filmmaker who's got an hbo series. i think she's phenomenally talented. the campaign manager for the obama campaign tweeted out this link to a video she cut. we'll play a little bit of it. it's a remarkable video politically in a lot of ways. take a look. >> your first time shouldn't be with just anybody. you want to do it with a great guy. it should be with a guy who is beautiful, someone who really cares about and understands women. a guy who cares whether you get health insurance, whether you get birth control. the consequences are huge. you want to do it with a guy who brought the troops out of iraq. you don't want to do it with a guy who says he's at the library or who says gay people shouldn't have beautiful, complicated weddings. it's a fun game, who are you voting for, i'm not going to tell you. they say, guess. think about how you want to spend those years. in college age times, that's 160 years. super uncool to be out and about. no, i wasn't ready. my first time voting was amazing. it was this line in the sand. before i was a girl, now i was a woman. i went to the polling station and pulled back the curtain. i voted for barack obama. >> all right. so there is an obvious metaphor. i think the best adjective to describe that would be cheeky. it precipitated like a combination of total fake outrage and genuine outrage i think on the right. i want to talk about this ad not because it's in the news cycle and people are getting mad. to me it says something profound about the political calculation where we are. i want you to think for a second. would john kerry have cut that ad in 2004? no fricken way. they would not have touched that ad in 2004 with a million foot poll. i want to ask you guys why that is right after we take this break. ♪ with a low national plan premium... ♪ ...and copays as low as one dollar... ♪ ...saving on your medicare prescriptions is easy. ♪ so you're free to focus on the things that really matter. call humana at 1-800-808-4003. or go to walmart.com for details. this reduced sodium soup says it may help lower cholesterol, how does it work? you just have to eat it as part of your heart healthy diet. step 1. eat the soup. all those veggies and beans, that's what may help lower your cholesterol and -- well that's easy [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. now we just played the lena dunham add that has the embedded metaphor about the first time and equating voting and sex. >> i want to see the kid rock ad. sorry. >> george, you have done political reporting and you did it in 2004. >> no, 8. >> i'm sorry, in 2008. it seems to me that the country has changed. the democrat's conception has changed insofar as they're willing to do that ad. >> right. i grew up in the '70s and the '80s when social issues were all for the republicans and democrats tried to avoid them. it seems things have turned. now democrats whenever the subject of women comes up they just assume that it's going to work in their favor and it often seems to. there's a gender gap and abortion rights are a huge issue so i think lena dunham is their main line to women in their early 20s who they're maybe worried aren't going to come out and vote and this is how to get them revved up. it's a slightly insulting view of the voting of young women. what do i know about them? i'm over 50. >> i agree with george wholeheartedly. i think that the challenge for me with this ad is that it says that the economic issue doesn't matter as much as the social issue. if you look at the trends and if you look at romney -- wait, let me finish. the republicans have been a nightmare on abortion, rape, everything else. the gender gap should be huge. the issue isn't that you see romney neck in neck in an election where women should be concerned. it says to me that economics is stirl driving this. that's what i think. >> two points i want to make. one is in the town hall debate when obama said for the first time i remember him clearly saying, reproductive rights is not a social issue. it's not a women's issue. it's an economic issue. women understand that. there's a gallup poll that came out last week that polled swing state voters and women's reproductive rights as a women's number one issue. >> also let me also say if you name check lily ledbetter and the iraq war which are not social issues. >> sorry. >> i was going to say that the ad makes me uncomfortable who's a not so young woman. maybe i've just gotten prudish in my old age. i think that it's not insulting to young women. i mean, the people who are going to vote for obama or who are thinking about voting for obama are not going to be offended by that ad. that's what you're pointing at. this current incensebility that's changed for democrats. obama has been aible to lead partially, let's face it, on the basis of his personality and his charisma. >> and also this forward leaning position which is so fascinating. who is the instigator in the quote unquote culture war? that's one of the dominant themes of this campaign that's been fascinating watching particularly covering the 2004 race which the right was the instigator. karl rove put the gay marriage stuff in the states. they wanted to fight about this stuff and there was this entire left literature that got produced. tom frank, what's the matter with kansas and a whole bunch of lefter versions of that argument about the ways in which social issues were used as a wedge to manipulate voters to vote against economic issues. it seems like we're on the other side of this. >> i look at it in part. the video is not about the social issues. it's made almost entirely in the register about the emotional. it's a feeling. that's what's unnerving not the sex, she would liken the feelings of obama, unshakeable love for him as if he were the guy she lost her virginity to. that sort of thing has -- that capacity for obama to elicit that extra rational, hyper emotional response has infuriated his critics on left and right. it was paul krugman during the 2008 primary. it's what the tea party goes crazy about. so do glen greenwald's followers. that's an interesting question of whether or not that sort of hyper emotional response for obama is endearing. is that going to reflect itself in the 2012 polls? and if he wins, is there a capacity to use that to effect a realignment. >> i think it dies sometime around the summer of 2009. to me, this ad reminded me of that horrible, yes, we can video where all those celebrities did their little piece of that song. >> i'm not familiar with that video. i don't know what you're talking about. >> and -- >> were you involved in that? >> no, no, no, no, no. >> and lena dunham doesn't know it's 2012 and president obama is a reasonably popular president. >> that's a great point. you say that. the fact of the matter is this is something i think the national media has missed a little bit. there's a "times" article about the ground game. the lead was like last time it was this passionate fervent undertaking and now it's this joyless grind. literally, that was the lead. >> losing your virginity versus the 30th year of marriage. >> let's not -- let's do this and not extend this metaphor for the duration of two hours of the show. but i actually think that that is definitely the story and there's absolutely a core truth to that because there is a difference, but what is missing is that there are literally millions of people in this country who do feel as fervently, who still feel that way about the president. i know this because this is a full disclosure thing too. my brother is a state director in nevada for the obama campaign. i know what he's doing and he's spending his whole life talking to volunteers and things like that. there remains a tremendous amount of this kind of intense, powerful, passionate personal thought to the president. >> does it translate into votes? >> i think it might. i mean, i think it is starting to. early voting and stuff. and i think also this is sort of the tradeoff that people only pay attention to politics every four years, right? the people who really were excited about obama in in 2008 went off and said he's doing his same thing. and now they've come back. the obama we saw in the last two debates and currently we're seeing on tv is the same guy people voted for in 2008. he's got that charisma and god i hate the word swagger did you i'm going to use the word swagger. he's doing things that are different. if you closed your eyes and didn't just not pay attention to his economic stuff but didn't pay attention to how joyless of a grind the presidency has been, it would be understandable to think that you were being involved in that same kind of passion you were involved in. >> hold that thought. i want to defend that rationality right after we take this break. we were enjoying our empty nest. and now it's just a nest full of laundry. lucky underwear. we were going through so much of that bargain detergent... and the clothes didn't look as good. but since we switched to tide, we use much less. their clothes are looking much more...uh... what's the word? 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