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Think about who he was talking about. folks on social security who have worked all their lives, veterans who sacrificed for this country. people who are working hard every day, paying payroll tax, gas taxes, but don't make enough income. and i want to fight for them. >> now, what was interesting to me about that is governor romney had just said his last statement, he brought up the 100%. either the president followed saying that he was going to answer that with the 47% or he planned to use that anyway as his closing but there's nothing more frustrating in a debate in leaving something that you...

Earns 49% support to obama's 48% and the undecided are only 3% and by the way, i double checked this, those very same swing states hold 146 electoral votes and obama won them four years ago. so boy, he's behind on his numbers there on the swing states, isn't he? >> look, we know this is going to be a big election. this is really going to come down to turnout. and when we look just in the state of ohio right now, 20% of ohio voters have already voted through the early vote process. two-thirds have gone to president obama. obama has a strong ground game. the obama for america and the dnc has bee...

One is firing up the base. mitt romney fired up his base during the debate and president obama did not. the other issue is the waiverers who were still undecided or who are persuadable and romney did a better job persuading during the debate than president obama did. i agree with joan. this is not the end of the world. this is not something that's uncorrectable. but it needs to be corrected. >> well, it could start with a good debate by joe biden coming up on thursday night. joan, how important is it? >> it's really important. i think what he needs to do is tie paul ryan around mitt romney's n...

To sort of get the voter, to get your base wound up again. because remember, this is a base election. whichever person, whichever candidate can get his base out to the polls, that's going to be the margin of victory. and with regard to the swing state polls, let's keep something in mind, before that debate last wednesday, the swing state polls were already shrinking. so, i mean, this isn't big news that ohio and michigan and florida and these other states are beginning to shrink. this election has always been a close election. >> all right, so one thing -- >> john? >> real quick because i want...

Republican party's politics on this issue? joining us now, steve carknacky, the co-host of msnbc's the cycle and a senior writer at salon.com. thanks for being here. >> happy to be here. >> there were a ton of these gay marriage bans on the ballot in 2004 and the common wisdom was republicans thought it would drive up turnout and help george w. bush get elected by bringing out conservatives who might not like him but who really hated gay people. did that turn out to be the case in '04? >> there is all sorts of speculation about that. you can certainly match up. it was a year in which turnout w...