so iowa, are you going to vote for me today if you haven't already voted? [applause] i need you. of you know, we had our second debate last night. [applause] i'm still trying to figure out how to get the hang of this thing, debating. but we're working on it. we'll keep on improving as time goes on. i've got one left. but, you know, the interesting thing is that governor romney has been running around talking about his five-point plan for the economy for quite some time. and as i pointed out last night, and you guys heard yourself, it's really a one-point plan. it says folks at the very top can play by their own set of rules. that's why they can pay lower taxes than you do or they can use offshore accounts, or they can invest in a company, bankrupt it, fire the workers take their pension, ship jobs overseas and still make money doing it. it's the one-point plan that says it's okay for wall street to keep engaging in the recommendless behavior we've been fighting back from for the past four years. it's the same philosophy that's been squeezing the middle class for more than a decad

so iowa, you know, everybody here has heard of the new deal. you've heard of the fair deal. you've heard of the square deal. mitt romney trying to sell you a sketchy deal. we are not buying it. we know better. we've been there. we've tried that. we're not going back. we're moving forward. that's why i need your vote. we've got to finish what we started in 2008. >> and romney is still talking. romney in virginia. >> and let me mention philip. philip was the first questioner of the night you may recall. he asked a question about the gasoline prices. and i pointed out they had gone from roughly about $1.86 a gallon when the president was elected to $4 a gallon and philip wanted to go up so much. the president's answer, the economy has gotten stronger. now on that basis when we have a real recovery, be he would suggest gasoline prices are going to go up to 6 or $8? this was the most classic of the nonanswers of the night. i think it's pretty clear that when it comes to his policies and his answers and agenda he's pretty much running on fumes and the american american people want

the question is not changing people's minds in iowa so much as getting them excited to go out and voterly voting is already going on in iowa, so i think that that is really what matters. that's why it hurt the president so much. not so much that his supporters or people who are leaning toward him switch over to mitt romney, but his supporters might be just a little less enthusiastic about getting out to the polls, getting their friends and neighbors, going to the phone bank tomorrow and calling up 50 people to get them to vote for barack obama. that is where it hurts him. this is right now not a mind-changing game in iowa. it's a turnout game. >> luke, is there any word on the hill as to whether people want john kerry replaced as the fake mitt romney in future debate prep? >> i spoke to a few people to pass the blame onto kerry, and i spoke to others that said that's hogwash. the president should be able to know what's going to happen. he's been in these debates before, albeit four years ago. he's watched some of the republican debates. there's a lot of talk that rob portman earned his

why is iowa so critical? stefan schmidt, a professor of political science at iowa state university. stefan, thanks for joining us. the romney campaign believes the race is closer than our poll is suggesting at the moment, and early vote cog be the issue. the poll finds 34% of likely voters have already cast their ballot, and the president leads in that voting specifically 2-1. but among election-day voters, mr. romney is likely to do better in our poll finding that 54% of those who would vote for mr. romney versus to 39% to mr. obama. when you look at this the absentee ballots could help mr. romney. lay this all out for us. >> you know, the polls have been all over the place, richard. and i am a big skeptic this year of the accuracy of the polls. any one given poll has shown barack obama blowing away mitt romney with the women's vote, and suddenly it tightens up and mitt romney is ahead. i think it's a very volatile, and as in iowa as in other places, it is touch and go. and i think it's going to be a close ra

so the firewall ohio, wisconsin, and iowa would put you there at 271. you see the importance of this and the fact of the matter is when you look at nevada right now, if you put nevada in the obama column here, slide it all the way over to show you that we can, you then see wisconsin becomes pretty important if you bring those ten over and then he has to break that one if it's -- if the firewall includes -- if nevada comes over the romney column, then he can just pick off an iowa. so when you lack at iowa and wisconsin, it all depends. if you put new hampshire into the obama column over there and let me put that over there to show you that example. some people think both new hampshire and nevada are obama states, then you have to break it. he has to come and get ohio in order to break the jam there. so you see that's the importance. the midwest firewall and then you throw in the nevada/new hampshire angle. if nevada ends up in the obama column and not new hampshire, then it has to be wisconsin or ohio but if both new hampshire and nevada end up in it the

so iowa, you know, everybody here has heard of the new deal. you've heard of the fair deal. you've heard of the square deal. mitt romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal. >> i just think that the american people had expected that the president of the united states would be able to describe what he's going to do in the next four years, but he can't. he can't even explain what he's done in the last four years. i mean, he spends most of his time trying to talking about how my plan won't work. well, what about his plan? >> that's president barack obama in iowa and mitt romney in virginia at campaign rallies today, continuing the fight from last night or trying to. joining us tonight is dan rather, the host of "dan rather reports" on ax cyst tv. glad to have you here. >> always glad to be here. >> the first debate was a big and consequential win for governor romney. that tracks with incumbents beating challengers in first debates. how do you think president obama's rebound performance last night stacks up historically? >> it was very important for if no other reason, this reas

so, iowa, you know, everybody here's heard of the new deal. you've heard of the fair deal. you've heard of the square deal. mitt romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal. we are not buying it. we know better. we've been there. we tried that. we're not going back. we're moving forward. that's why i need your vote! we've got to finish what we started in 2008. you don't want to invest in that sketchy deal. >> we're back now. howard and john, let's try to do this straight up right now without any partisanship for a few minutes here from either side. john, try to hold back. i really want -- if you're being asked by your mother, close relative, somebody really care to let them know the trail of truth, where does this campaign stand right now? we've got 20 days to go after last night's victory by the president, after the thumping two weeks ago, after the rough victory by biden, very rough by him. where does it all stand in terms of not just their number but the direction? howard first. >> well, it's a very close race. the popular vote totals, if you look at various compilations

so, this was very important to the people of iowa. it's in our constitution. and we want to keep it that way. we don't want to change a system that's kept money and politics out of our courts for 50 years. >> so, what's happening now? >> well, when the decision came down from the supreme court about same-sex marriage, there then began to be opposition to this particular ruling. >> so, there was an outcry when those judges, it was a unanimous decision on the court -- >> it was, yes. >> -- to uphold marriage equality, right? but they didn't accept that. they didn't like that decision, right? >> correct. they did not and started a process then of telling people that they should vote against the retention of the justices not for the reasons that you should vote against, say, malfeasance in office, incompetence, that sort of thing, but merely because of this one decision. >> really, what the court said was that the government cannot discriminate against you based on your race or your religion or sexual orientation or how much money you have. and so, that is really a

iowa? guest: i can tell you this. i'm over 60 as well, so i understand that. we are getting phone calls in iowa. the issue of romney's religion is an issue i raised with him when he ran a pull your years ago and its initial history sensitive about man does not like to talk about. iowa republicans are dominated by evangelical christians. they are a bit leery of mormons. they don't understand it it. they don't like to talk about it. no one will say i am not excited about mitt romney because he's a mormon, but they are aware of it. so that is an issue. it goes more to not whether someone will support mitt romney or not support mitt romney but the enthusiasm level they will bring to the campaign. that diminishes it just a bit. so that's an issue. if you look at how the campaign plays out, i think that will be one of the major deciding factors in this election, which i think is very close. and that is the enthusiasm level that each candidate can bring to the game. can mitt romney excite republican -- the republican base, which is largely evangelical christians in io

so, iowa, everybody here's heard of the new deal. you've heard of the fair deal. you've heard of the square deal. mitt romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal. we are not buying it. >> reporter: from here the president heads to ohio, a key battleground state that both campaigns are fighting very hard to win in november. and where governor romney has closed the gap in the most recent polls. wolf. >> dan lothian with the president. mitt romney told a virginia crowd he loves taking part in the debates with president obama. members of both campaigns, they are still arguing about something that romney said during last night's confrontation. cnn's national political correspondent jim acosta is with the romney campaign. >> reporter: wolf, after what sounded like a war between two men trying to assume the role of debate alpha dog, both campaigns are still barking. not surprisingly mitt romney is sounding like a candidate who believes he's gone two-for-two, but at his first post debate event it's worth noting what did and did not come out. >> i love these debates. you k

so the iowa, colorado, california, nevada, florida, virginia, and then illinois trip that the president is on right now is a 48-hour trip. it does not even get him until the end of the week. on the other side of the aisle, mitt romney and his running mate, paul ryan, are taking it much slower than the democrats at this point. mr. romney had one event this afternoon in nevada. he has another event right now in iowa. and that's it for the whole day. paul ryan gave a speech in ohio today, and that one event was it for him. presumably, they are pacing themselves for something that comes later. in terms of the state of the race, both campaigns are trying to spin reporters now into saying that they are ahead. but if you ignore the spin, if you ignore what the campaigns are saying and you just look at the polls, the best that anybody can say about the race right now is that it is a tie, at least nationally. do you want me to prove it? these are all of the tracking polls that came out today. all right? gallup says that romney is up by three. "investors business daily" says, no, no, no, it's oba

iowa. of those people who already voted, this is how they voted. a 35-point margin in favor of president obama. sohat's iowa. that is the payoff of democrats stressing early voting so much and now you know why republican state officials have been trying to hard to get rid of early voting everywhere they can. the other state where we got data on early voting today was wisconsin. now, in wisconsin, here are the voter preferences of early voters in that state. right? look at it in wisconsin. proportion is almost exactly the same. among people who are early voting in wisconsin, president obama has a 29-point lead. a hugely disproportionate split for president obama among people who are voting early. the difference, though, is that while in iowa, more than a third of the electorate have already early voted, in wisconsin, only 6% of the electorate have early voted. they're voting for obama by a huge margin, but there just aren't have many of them. so president obama is winning by a lot more in iowa than he was winning in wisconsin, but still he is winning in both states. that is some of the state of the

iowa. god bless you. thank you so much. >> 17 minutes of speech. genda in ames, iowa. they billed it as a major announcement, major economic speech. candy crowley is in washington. jim accosta is with the romney campaign in ames, iowa. ali velshi on the road in philadelphia. first of all, i want to go to you first, ali, because one uft things that i heard here is that the gdp figure, the 2% increase in the third quarter. >> yeah. >> despite the fact that most economists didn't expect this. it was good news. we heard mitt romney say that this was a disappointment, that it wasn't the 4% that was necessary. so, you know, voters are tired of all the spin. which is it? was it -- is it good news? is it bad news? help us understand that figure. >> well, it's better news than he we thought it was going to be. we thought we were getting 1.p% growth, and we ended up getting 2%. it's better. 2% is not what is going to propel this economy forward. it's not going to create 12 million jobs in four years, which is why i found it interesting. they said this was maj

so that it could be a firewall if romney runs the table with florida, north carolina, virginia, colorado and new hampshire, then obama has to hold wisconsin and ohio and win either nevada or iowa. so that to me looks like the sort of division right now. those first states i mentioned, those are the states where romney has really done well since the first debate. so you could see nevada as a firewall if obama keeps his lead in wisconsin and ohio. >> thanks very much. don't forget, 7:00 p.m. eastern monday night, our coverage begins, the third and final presidential debate. stay with cnn for that. >>> september's deadly attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi has become a major issue. we're going to go over what really happened. (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. i have a cold, and i took nyquil, but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] it doesn't have a decongestant. no way. [ male announcer ] sorry. alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast-acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose. thanks.

in iowa things are pretty good. 5.2% unemployment rate, so i'm wonderi wondering, are people in iowang more like unemployment is at 5% or more like unemployment is at 7.8%? >> i think that depends on who you ask and when you and. if you talk about -- it's interesting to watch republicans, for example, in charge of the state, republican governor, for example. simultaneously touting the fact that the economy is on the move under his administration, and yet, you know, making the point that nationally the economy is still in bad shape. i think that iowa voters have been pretty clear that they feel better about the way things are going until the state than about the nation. you know, obviously, we're all paying attention to the national news, you know, here today in iowa. everyone is hanging on the news about hurricane sandy and what's happening to our friends on the east coast. so, you know, people do pay attention to the national and not just what's going on in their own neighborhood. >> what jumped out at me about this endorsement if you read the register's endorsement offal romney, th