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CNN Saturday Morning News

New York Continues Recovery from Super-Storm Sandy; Presidential Candidates Campaign in Swing States; Polls Show Close Presidential Race; Early Voting Continues in Florida; Women Vote Examined; Interview with Gloria Steinem

Aired November 03, 2012 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just total, total devastation.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our hearts go out to the families who have lost loved ones.

MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We come together in times of trial, and this is one of those times.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) NEW JERSEY: I cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make no mistake about it, this was a devastating storm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are going to die. You don't understand. You got to get your trucks here on this corner.

ROMNEY: The question of this election comes down to this. Do you want more of the same, or do you want real change?

OBAMA: Have you heard him? He's going around saying I'm the candidate of change. Except when you look at the policies, they're the same ones that didn't work.

ROMNEY: Ohio, you're probably going to decide the next president of the United States.

OBAMA: You may have noticed that everybody's paying a lot of attention to Ohio.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. It is 10:00 in New York, 7:00 in Los Angeles. Thanks for starting your morning with us. We start in the final stretch. There are only three days left until Election Day. And you know what that means. It means a mad dash by both campaigns.

And here's what I'm talking about -- President Obama crisscrossing the country from Colorado to New Hampshire over the next two days. That includes two separate trips to Ohio. Mitt Romney has most of those states on his itinerary as well, but he's also adding Pennsylvania to his list. Last hour, we brought you live coverage of his stop in New Hampshire.

Now, here is the national picture, and it couldn't be closer. Our poll shows 47 percent each.

President Obama will soon be on his way to Mentor, Ohio, to campaign in the Cleveland suburb, but before we take you there, listen to the president slam Mitt Romney over an ad his campaign is running in Ohio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Look, I understand Governor Romney has had a tough time here in Ohio because he was against saving the auto industry. And it's hard to run away from a position when you're on videotape saying "Let Detroit go bankrupt." But you've got to own what you say. This isn't a game. These are people's jobs at stake. These are people's lives. You don't scare hard working Americans just to scare up some votes. That's not what being president's all about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: The president was responding to this Romney ad that implies the auto bailout plan failed and Chrysler will move jobs to China, a claim that Chrysler has denied.

Romney spoke last hour in New Hampshire, sharpening his attack on Obama, and he's all but declared victory. He even called the event a victory rally.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: When I'm president it's going to be very clear that we finally have an administration and a president and a government in the United States that actually likes job creators, that wants to help job creators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Romney called yesterday's jobs report a sad reminder that unemployment is at a virtual standstill with unemployment essentially unchanged at 7.9 percent, while the Obama campaign touted the 171,000 jobs added with improved numbers in September and August.

We have our correspondents spread throughout the battleground states to bring you the latest on the election and the final push for both candidates. Out White House correspondent Dan Lothian is in Ohio where the president will speak next hour. Dan, good morning. How is President Obama handling the post-Sandy power outages and flooding on the campaign trail? It's a difficult balance, I'm sure, between the two.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You make a really good point, because the president is still trying to make this big push in the final days of this campaign, but at the same time, has to do his day job dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. A White House official said the president was briefed overnight on the latest situation there, and then this morning he headed over to FEMA headquarters, where he got another briefing from his homeland security team to get an update on not only the flood damage, but also the power outage situation. The president held a video conference call also with the governors in the impacted area of Connecticut, New Jersey, and also New York. The main theme from the president during that meeting was that the government has to get it right. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: What I told the governors and the mayors is what I've been saying to my team from the start of this event, and that is we don't have any patience for bureaucracy, we don't have any patience for red tape, and we want to make sure that we are figuring out a way to get to yes as opposed to no when it comes to these problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LOTHIAN: Randi, later today, high level administration officials will be fanning out to get an up close view of what the government's effort -- how it's going. We are told that Secretary Sebelius will be visiting hospital workers in Manhattan and also in the Bronx.

KAYE: Dan, how are the polls looking? What are they saying at this point?

LOTHIAN: Well, I think it's interesting, the polls are seemingly all over the place, but I think they've been relatively consistent over the last month, the president up by just a few points here. The CNN/OCR poll has the president up by three points. There's also an NBC poll that has the president up by six points. The bottom line is that it is a very tight race here in Ohio, critical to both campaigns. That's why they're spending so much time here, the president made three stops in Ohio yesterday, two stops today, will be back again tomorrow.

And the big push here is on the auto bailout, as you heard at the top of the show there. The president going after that Mitt Romney ad that suggested that jobs from the Chrysler plant may end up going to China, the president accusing Mitt Romney of bending the truth. Citing one example of some workers at a jeep plant who were concerned about that ad, went to their bosses thinking that perhaps there are jobs who go overseas. So I'm told by a campaign official that the president will continue to push that theme of the auto bailout. They believe that really resonates with workers here in the state of Ohio because so many of the jobs here depend on the auto industry.

KAYE: That is certainly an issue there. Thank you very much. Appreciate the update.

Mitt Romney just wrapped up his first weekend campaign rally in New Hampshire, and now he is headed the Iowa. Our national political correspondent Jim Acosta was there in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JIM ACOSTA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Mitt Romney has kicked off his swing state blitz in this final weekend of the presidential campaign, starting the day in New Hampshire and then heading next to Iowa and Colorado. We're hearing the GOP nominee touch on some themes that he's been bringing up quite a bit in the last couple of days, saying he is the candidate of what he calls real change. He's also going through his five-point economic plan to get the country back on track, talking about ideas like cutting the deficit, tapping into domestic energy resources and fixing the nation's public school system.

But one thing that he has been trying to zero in on in this final stretch of the campaign, he has been going after the president's mantel, being a post-partisan president. In the words of Mitt Romney, the president has been what he calls "the most partisan." Here's what he had to say.

ROMNEY: Yesterday, the president said something you might have heard by now that I think surprised a lot of people. He said "voting is the best revenge." He told his supporters, voting for revenge. Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I'd like to tell you. Vote for love of country.

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: It is time we lead America to a better place.

ACOSTA: As for the rest of this weekend, Mitt Romney will be heading back to what is perhaps the ultimate battleground state of Ohio, where polls show the GOP nominee is trailing the president by anywhere between three and six points. He is also going to be hitting the state of Pennsylvania, a state that the Obama campaign says is not in play but is increasingly looking like a state that is becoming more competitive. Jim Acosta, CNN, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: New York Governor Cuomo is speaking right now at this press conference in New York City. Has the latest information on the Sandy cleanup. One highlight to point out, he has said that all power has been restored to Manhattan. But let's listen in for just a minute.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, (D) NEW YORK: -- from what was horrendous damage. And the worst damage that the subway system had ever seen, that people can remember, and 80 percent is back. So that is just a great, great job. The service between Brooklyn and queens and Manhattan is being restored immediately. The four, five, six, and seven train will immediately begin to run. The f, the j, the d, the m will run later this afternoon. The Staten Island railway will have limited service beginning later today.

The entire MTA team really did an extraordinary job. They've been work straight. I don't know how many of them are even on their feet. I've been seeing them 24 hours a day, and not only did they try hard, but they actually got the job done. And the MTA has a great leader in Joe Loda, and I really applaud him and his work. As a matter of fact, let's give him a round of applause, Joe Loda, who's here with us today.

The World Trade Center site was frightening. You know, the world trade center site is still under construction. It's right near the Hudson River. And at the cresting of the tide on Monday night, the Hudson River was basically pouring into the World Trade Center site. I was there to see it myself. The World Trade Center site had 28 feet of water. The memorial was flooded. The museum underneath the memorial was flooded. The pumping of the World Trade Center site has been completed. The World Trade center site is now basically dry. The memorial is still flooded, pumping will continue, and we expect by the end of today, the memorial will be fully pumped out.

In terms of food, we are continuing the food distribution. We will have about one million meals distributed over the next couple of days in totality. And I thank again all the not for profit organizations that are helping us do this distribution. This is a massive undertaking. The National Guards are the backbone of the effort, but we also have not for profits and volunteers showing up all throughout the metropolitan area to help with the distribution.

KAYE: You've been listening to Governor Andrew Cuomo speaking in New York City about some of the improvements that have been made since super-storm Sandy. Talking about the World Trade Center memorial, still under water, but that should be pumped out today, he said. But the big headline is that all power, he says, has been restored in Manhattan.

And one other note, fuel trucks we're told are going to be in the New York-New Jersey area. The U.S. department of defense and the president have ordered this, and there will be a ten-gallon limit. There's been a real problem for folks there trying to get gasoline in their cars, so that is certainly some good news as well.

Now more on super-storm Sandy. Take a look at these stunning before- and-after photos that we're just getting from Google Earth. This first one is from brick township, New Jersey. On the right, if you look closely, you can see the cared remains of a neighborhood and some small fires still glowing. And then this is on the New Jersey coast, one of New Jersey's barrier islands. You can see it now has a small river running through where a cluster of homes actually used to be. I actually saw that area for myself. It is something to see. The end of bridge, you can see, was also washed out.

This is iconic seaside heights. Look at the corner of the pier there where a roller coaster once was. On the rights side, you see it broke off right into the ocean and piles of debris washed up on to the beach. It's really an incredible sight.

All right, so what would you do if you could run the presidential campaigns during the last three days before the election? Where would you go and who would you have by your side? A lot to imagine, and we'll ask some experts. We'll find out what Maria Cardona and Ana Navarro would like to do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAYE: Welcome back, everyone. This is a live picture in Mentor, Ohio, where President Obama is preparing to speak. We will bring you those remarks. They're supposed to happen just before noon eastern time. And you see the crowds there certainly gathering. We brought you the remarks of Governor Mitt Romney earlier, speaking in New Hampshire, so we're listening to the president coming up next hour.

Millions of Americans have already voted in places like Florida, Ohio, and in Georgia. But that is just a fraction of the total, which makes the next three days pretty darn important for the candidates. Joining me now, as she does at this time every week, is CNN contributor Maria Cardona, and from Miami this morning, CNN contributor Ana Navarro. Good morning to both of you.

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good morning.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning.

KAYE: Maria, last week you said that the Latino vote is being undercounted in the polls and that President Obama actually has a bigger lead than everyone thinks. I want to get Ana's take on that one.

NAVARRO: You know, we could spend all morning here discussing the skewed polls. If they look good from my side, the Democrats think it looks skewed. I think we're going to go into a nose spin, and we don't want to suffer from political schizophrenia. My advice is that we don't obsess about polls because it really could lead to temporary insanity between now and November 6th. I just saw two polls last night from Florida. One had Mitt Romney six points up on Barack Obama, and the second one, which came out five minutes later, had President Obama two points up on Mitt Romney. So it's a very tricky discussion.

KAYE: It certainly is. A little bit of temporary insanity is OK as we get close to Election Day. Maria, do you still stand by your prediction?

CARDONA: Absolutely, Randi. And frankly, a lot of analysts agree with that. If you look at what of George Bush's own pollsters said when he was president and running was that no Republican can actually get to the White House with at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. This was in 2004. Imagine that percentage has had to have gone up just a little bit given the expanded population of Hispanic voters. And right now, you have Mitt Romney at less than 25 percent nationally, and less than 25 percent in each of the key swing states that had large Hispanic populations, like Nevada, like Colorado, like Florida.

So I think they should be very worried when it comes to these battleground states, and even in Ohio, Randi, where you have 166,000 registered Latino voters going out to the polls, and in an election this tight, they could absolutely be the deciding factor. I think it's going to be the October surprise of this election.

KAYE: I thought we already had one of those.

(LAUGHTER) CARDONA: Early November.

KAYE: Let me ask you, because we were asking our viewers before the break, if you could run the campaign in the last three days, what would you do if you have the reins of the campaign? If you were in charge of the Romney campaign, Ana, what would you do at this point?

NAVARRO: I think exactly what they are doing. They're having big rallies, showing a great deal of Republican unity. They're showing a great deal of momentum. They've got over a hundred of the top Republican surrogates out there fanning around the country, going to the swing states. So you've got to get your base out at this point. Pretty much, Randi, the cast is die is getting every single one of your votes and trying to change the very few undecided that are left in the swing states.

Randi, I do want to go back to the Latino vote question and seriously look. What Maria said in 2004 was right. But it's not right in 2012, much to my chagrin, because I wish it were. And the reason is, because we haven't seen this kind of shift of white voters before. If the white voter support had stayed for Barack Obama what it was four years ago or what it was for the Democrat four years before that, then yes, you would need 40 percent of the Latino vote. But right now, we could very well see Mitt Romney win with a lot less than that and we could see Barack Obama win with a lot less of the white vote than we have seen in the past.

KAYE: Right, it certainly has shifted.

Maria, very quickly, if you were running the Obama campaign where would you go, what would you be doing? A lot of people have said he needs to start belting it out again and getting that sore throat that he had at the end of 2008.

CARDONA: I think he'll probably end up with that sore throat on Tuesday night, but I also think exactly what they're doing -- look, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton wherever they can get him, and going to all of the swing states wherever they can get him. I think more importantly, to actually show real people. In Ohio, to have all of the auto workers whose jobs have been saved by the president's rescue of the auto industry, in sharp contrast with what Mitt Romney wanted to do, which was to let the industry go bankrupt, and also in sharp contrast with the absolutely flat-out deceiving ads that Mitt Romney is running in Ohio right now, where he even had to have the CEO of GM and the CEO of Chrysler come out to say that they're lies and that he needs to cut it out. I think in Ohio, such an important state for Mitt Romney where the president is leading right now, the Obama campaign is doing exactly what they need to be doing.

KAYE: At a time like this, the visuals are just as important as the rhetoric. Thank you both, Maria, Ana, nice to see you.

CARDONA: Thanks so much, Randi.

KAYE: It is the other big story, super-storm Sandy. It left behind widespread disruption and is blamed for dozens of deaths. The surprising way some of the victims died and how it may have been prevented.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The heartache is growing for families across the northeast as Sandy claims more lives. According to the latest number, the storm is now blamed for 106 deaths in the U.S. overall, Sandy left 175 people dead including Canada and the Caribbean. Nick Valencia is joining us now for a little bit more in terms of the loss of life, is it still really the focus mainly in New York and New Jersey?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is. That accounted for more than half of the U.S. related deaths. We had 106. Between New York and New Jersey, 70 deaths there. But even before the storm, before it made landfall in the United States, it was already a deadly storm. The hardest hit area was Haiti in the Caribbean, 67 deaths there accounted for the overall 175 that perished in the storm.

KAYE: I was in that area covering the storm for Anderson Cooper's show, and we did a story on the natural gas and the leaks that were happening along the coastline there. But you said there's actually something else that people were dying from.

VALENCIA: Yes. We found something very interesting today. Amid the correlation that carbon monoxide poisoning ends up being a cause for a handful of deaths in these U.S. related deaths, anyway, very preventable, something that was very preventable. We took it a step further. We found out a few years ago, the federal government partnered with the CDC and they realized that generators, even if they're placed outside, Randi, they need to be placed more than 20 feet away from their home. We found out that people in Pennsylvania and Virginia, they had the generators inside their home, but the federal government took it one step further, said even if you have it close to your home, it needs to be about 20 feet, otherwise it could be fatal.

KAYE: So they survived the storm and perished from the carbon monoxide. That's terrible.

What about the bounty? We covered that a lot this week. Do you have any update on that? Has the search been suspended for the captain?

VALENCIA: Just a reminder, the HMS Bounty is a ship, a replica of a Royal Navy merchant vessel. It sunk off the coast of North Carolina. They did suspend that search for the missing captain. But earlier this week a recent interview with the captain surfaced, and he talked about why it was one of the greatest jobs in the world. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBIN WALBRIDGE, CAPTAIN, HMS BOUNTY: There's no artificial contrived problems out here. The problems out here are real. If you're sinking, you're sinking. If the wind is blowing 80 knots, Mother Nature doesn't care if you're white, black, yellow, green. You're just dealing with honest facts, honest illusions.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VALENCIA: Robin Walbridge is 63 years old. They still haven't said that he is presumed dead, but he's still missing at this point. He worked for the Bounty for 17 years. As he said, his greatest job, greatest job in the world. It's a sad story.

KAYE: It is certainly, a lot of those coming out of the storm. Nick, thank you very much.

So many states, so little time. The Obama campaign has a flurry of stops on the agenda for the final three days, but some key states are getting stiffed. We'll take you live to Obama headquarters to find out exactly why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. Here are some stories that we're watching this morning.

Good news for some residents of New York City dealing with the aftermath of Sandy. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing just a short time ago here on CNN that 80 percent of subway service has now been restored. He also says power has been restored in all of Manhattan. But for others across the northeast, it could be at least another week before the power is back on.

Separately, hundreds have been lining up for miles just trying to get gasoline. Many gas stations in the New York-New Jersey area are still out of commission.

We are down to the last three days before the election. President Obama and Mitt Romney are campaigning across several key states this weekend. Both candidates will be in Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, and Virginia, while Romney will also be making a stop in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

And it is taking some voters up to four hours to cast their ballots in Florida, one of the election's most crucial swing states. Remember, early voting in Florida started a week later than it did in 2008 because of a new state law. The Republican state legislature reduced the number of early voting days from 14 down to eight.

There are just three days left until Election Day, and the presidential race is pretty darn tight. The candidates are making a final push through the swing states, looking for any advantage along the way. Joining me now to talk about the president's final flurry is Brent Colburn, the national communications director for the Obama campaign. Brent, good morning. Thanks for being here with us. Tell me, what is the strategy for these last three days?

BRENT COLBURN, NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, OBAMA CAMPAIGN: Look, Randi, for this last push, it's pretty simple. We want to be as many places as we can, as many times as we can before people cast that last ballot when the polls close on election night. So the president's out there, campaigning hard. He's in Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, and Virginia just today. He's hitting a number of states Sunday, and then finishing up with a big three-state push that takes him back to Iowa where it all started in 2008 to wrap things up with the first lady on Monday night.

And it's not just the president. The vice president is out hitting states. We have President Clinton out doing stop after stop. We just want to make sure the voters know the choice and most importantly know to show up to vote. And like you said, in Florida, when there's lines, to stay in line, but what matters is who shows up and who they cast their ballot for on Tuesday.

KAYE: Let's look at this map of the planned stops in the days before Election Day, the all-important swing states. I'm guessing I probably know the answer to this next question, but are there any one of these states that might be a little more precious than the others?

COLBURN: Well, look, the way our system works, it usually comes down to a handful of stops, a handful of states that really kind of decide the election. I think you tell from both the candidates' travel what those states might be. But of all the battleground states, we feel very confident that we have the ground game to get them where they need to be on Election Day. Early vote is going on. We've done great.

North Carolina is a good example of what we're seeing. The Republicans have thought they could put this away for months. The reality is polls have it tight there and tied in many polls. We've got a great ground operation. We registered over a quarter million new voters there through our voter registration efforts, so we feel good about every state that's on the map.

KAYE: I want to put that map back up for just a second. That's a lot of swing states right there. But I notice that Nevada and New Hampshire aren't on that list. Is that about time or is that about a level of confidence?

COLBURN: Well, look, the president was in Nevada earlier this week. Like I said, the president, the first lady, the vice president have all been there consistently throughout this campaign. And the reality is a lot of votes have already been cast in Nevada. It's a very active early vote state. So we wanted to spend some time there earlier. We have a solid ground game again that's going to be knocking on doors through the weekend, making sure people show up to vote. The president was just up in New Hampshire this week as well. We consider those states that we can win, and places we played consistently throughout this campaign.

KAYE: Just to be clear on that, New Hampshire was on that list. It was Nevada.

We're seeing Republicans put extra focus on Pennsylvania. Are you at all concern that the state is more in play than it might have been three weeks ago?

COLBURN: Sure. I think you've seen an interesting strategy from the Republicans over the last week. The reality is that their path to the White House was very narrow and went right through Ohio, where they have just beaten back time and again, in many cases because of the positions Mitt Romney has taken on issues like the auto rescue. We have been consistent in Ohio. We feel good about Ohio. But that means they've had to make a desperate look for other places. Other ways to get to that magic 270 number.

They tried to say Minnesota. They tried to say Pennsylvania. They're spending some time and money there. We feel good about Pennsylvania. President Clinton will be up in Pennsylvania this weekend. Again, we've got a really great ground game there. We did well there in 2008. So we feel comfortable we're going to win in Pennsylvania.

And these desperate moves are what you see from campaigns at the end that are looking for a way to win. This is exactly what we saw out of the McCain campaign in 2008 when they made an aggressive move into Pennsylvania in the closing weeks of the campaign.

KAYE: Right, and some others beforehand as well. The final jobs report, though, before I let you go, unemployment up to 7.9 percent, 171,000 jobs. Good news, bad news, or a bit of mixed news for the president?

COLBURN: I think if you look at all the economic indicators and where we've seen the economy move over the last three years, especially given what the president inherited in 2009, Americans should feel good about the direction we're going in. We've had 33 straight months of new private sector jobs added, second month under eight percent for unemployment. We still have work to do. That's what's so important about this election. We need to stick with president, show up and vote for the president so we can keep the policies moving forward that have gotten us headed back the right direction and not go backwards to the economic policies of the past, the ones that Mitt Romney is advocating for, where you have a trickle down economic attitude. That's exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.

So we feel good about the report on Friday. We know there's a on the more to do. And the president is going to keep working until every American who wants a job can get a job. But we feel like the economy is a good issue for us, and the president is proud of his record.

KAYE: Brent Colburn, hope you get some sleep in the next few days. You'll need it. Thanks again for checking in with us.

COLBURN: Thanks, Randi. And everybody make sure to show up to vote. We'll talk to you again.

KAYE: All right, thank you.

COLBURN: So would you wait four hours in line to vote? That is what is happening in Florida as early voters wait in long lines to cast their ballots. We are headed there next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: A little Space Dog there.

The race for president doesn't get much closer than it is right now in Florida. A poll taken this week shows President Obama edging out Mitt Romney 49 percent to 47 percent. That is within the sampling error. Florida, of course, has a coveted 29 electoral votes. And more than 3.4 million ballots already have been cast. That is more than a third of the total turnout that's actually expected.

But early voting has been pretty controversial with extremely long lines and calls for an extension of the early voting period. It doesn't look like that's going to happen. John Zarrella is just north of Miami. You voted yesterday before the last day. How did it go?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and I probably should have voted a few days earlier than that as well. It was about two hours and ten minutes from just about where I'm standing now to the point where I was in and out and done voting.

But public service announcement out there, for anybody in Broward County who was planning to come here today, you might want to think about coming now, because the line is actually down, if you can imagine, from where it was a little while ago. It's probably still a three and a half hour wait, but it was just over four hours a while ago. So as we move towards the noon hour, it might be a good time to come on out here and vote.

And as you mentioned, originally, four years ago, it was 14 days, but the state legislature cut it to only eight days of early voting. So thus these tremendous long lines that we're seeing here on the last day of early voting, and a lot of people are concerned that when it comes to Election Day on Tuesday, this is going to also translate into some tremendously long lines on Election Day. We'll have to just, as they say, wait and see.

KAYE: Certainly a concern for both campaigns really is that these people won't get a chance to vote. Have you seen people come and take a look at the line and say forget it? I mean, what's the mood there? Are they frustrated? Are they being patient?

ZARRELLA: No, they're not. They're absolutely being patient. I had a political party official come up to me saying, you know, considering how acrimonious all of these elections have become and how polarized, the people are here, standing in line, meeting new friends, right? Everybody's really good natured about it. They're taking it in stride.

And this political official was telling me, you know, it's really good to see people exercising their right to vote. And in Florida, as everyone is well aware, 2000 election, 537 votes was the difference. So if there is any place in the nation where the people know that every vote counts, it's Florida.

KAYE: Absolutely. I am so glad you pointed that out, John. John Zarrella there in Plantation, thank you.

ZARRELLA: Sure.

KAYE: She says Mitt Romney is the least truthful candidate she has ever seen in her lifetime and that women should be concerned if he is elected president. Next, legendary American feminist and author Gloria Steinem joins me. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAYE: The question for the Obama campaign, will women have his back on Tuesday? If recent polling is any indication, the president will have that crucial voting block to thank if he wins re-election. Take a look, right now nationally Mr. Obama has an 11-point advantage over Mitt Romney among women voters. That lead is even larger in some battleground states like Ohio, where a recent CNN/ORC poll indicates the president has a 14-point edge over Romney with women, and in Virginia, where Obama leads by 16 points.

So what is behind those numbers? Why are women more inclined to support the Democratic ticket this year? Joining me now, social justice activist and feminist icon Gloria Steinem, she's also the co- founder of "Ms." Magazine, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this month with a special voters' issue. Gloria, good morning, and thank you for joining us.

GLORIA STEINEM, CO-FOUNDER, "MS." MAGAZINE: Good morning, and thank you.

KAYE: So let me show you about the cover that we just showed there. It depicts women holding those signs saying "Stop the War on Women." Describe that war on women as you see it today.

STEINEM: The war on women is not actually a Republican war. It's a war by the extremists who are now in control of the Republican Party. And what it means is first controlling reproduction. We're accustomed in this country to talking about production. We forget that controlling reproduction is even more important. So it would put women's bodies under literally government control with the human life amendment.

It's also about refusing to support equal pay, which is quite astounding, because I don't remember any presidential candidate who at least verbally has not agreed to support equal pay.

And it is also interfering with such things as the violence against women act, even though more women have been killed by their husbands or boyfriends since 9/11 than Americans were killed in 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined, and yet they have refused to extend the violence against women act.

KAYE: I wanted to show you this poll, though, from earlier this month of the most important issue for women in this election, and at the very top, if you can see it there, it's abortion, 39 percent, with jobs and health care far below. You've been traveling across the country. Buzz that surprise you? Is that in line with what you're hearing from women as far as their concerns?

STEINEM: No, it is in line, and that's why I put controlling reproduction first, because the human life amendment, which is expected by Romney and Ryan in the platform, would declare the fertilized egg to be a person, and that means that women's bodies throughout our childbearing years would be under government control.

But also remember that one in three American women has needed an abortion at some time in her life before she's 45. Most of those women who have needed abortions are already mothers, so they absolutely understand that it's important that every child is born, loved, and wanted. And there are already 35 states in which young women have been deprived of those rights. So we understand it's on the edge.

KAYE: What about Roe v. Wade? Mitt Romney has said he would work toward overturning Roe v. Wade. Do you truly think it's in danger?

STEINEM: It's much more than that. First of all, it has already been eviscerated in those 35 states for young women, and also for poor women who are dependent on government health care. And the Romney-Ryan position goes around even the Supreme Court to support a constitutional amendment to declare the fertilized egg a person. So they could not possibly be more clear. And whether or not -- however people feel about what they personally would choose, they want to make the choice. They don't want the government to make the choice.

KAYE: I want to talk about another equally important issue. That's equal pay for women. Right now, women are paid about 77 percent on the dollar of what men are paid. The issue, as you know, came up in the second presidential debate where Romney never specifically said whether he supported equal pay. Instead, he talked about hose well- known binders full of women. You say equal pay is the biggest boost to our economy. Do you also think it would be a deciding factor Tuesday?

STEINEM: Well, it should be a deciding factor, but I don't think I don't think I or the Obama campaign has done the best job of explaining. Obama supports equal pay and talks about it as an individual issue and a family issue, but really nobody has talked about it as the single biggest economic stimulus to create jobs that this country could possibly institute. It would cut the poverty rate drastically and would put money in the economy exactly where it's needed and exactly where it's most likely to be spent, and increase jobs.

But we haven't talked about it. We talk about women as a social issue. Excuse me? Half the population is not a social issue. And that somehow makes it not an economic issue. It is an economic issue.

KAYE: You said recently that the Republican Party is not the same party that it was a few decades ago. How do you think it's changed?

STEINEM: It's changed hugely. I mean, the Republican Party was in my memory the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment. Goldwater supported reproductive freedom. The first Bush supported Planned Parenthood. Reagan supported immigrant rights. It has been taken over by extremists, many of whom used to be Democrats.

And it began with the passage of the civil rights act in the '60s when the old Dixie-crats like Jesse Helms left the Democratic Party because it became too racially inclusive and began gradually to take over the Republican Party. It's so dangerous to have one of our two big parties controlled by extremists, because it makes people think that issues are equally divided when they are, in fact, not. They're 70-30 or 60- 40. So I think our long-term job is to take back the Republican Party.

KAYE: And just very quickly what is your prediction for Tuesday? STEINEM: You know, it all depends who votes. If it is a lowered voter turnout, which obviously the governor and legislature of Florida wants because they have cut the voting time almost in half and increased the ballot to 12 pages or something, then it will be an older, richer, whiter electorate. If it is a higher turnout, then it will be a more inclusive electorate. So a low turnout will elect Romney-Ryan. A high turnout, a true democratic turnout, will absolutely re-elect Obama.

KAYE: Yes, and some states, from what I understand, the voting forums are like 30 pages to go through. It's going to be interesting.

STEINEM: I really think that another long-term job is to look at this voting situation very seriously because Florida in 2000 was actually won by Gore as every later survey showed, and yet, it went to Bush. I mean, we have a very, very flawed voting system. But the good thing I see as I travel is that people, especially women, are not only ready to vote, they will fight to vote. They will not go away until they vote.

KAYE: As everyone should. Gloria Steinem, thank you so much. Appreciate you being here.

STEINEM: Thank you.

KAYE: Late night comedians proving they aren't afraid to take on anyone, even a hurricane. Find out what letterman and his pals had to say about super storm Sandy.

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JAY LENO, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Hey, you know, they did not have Halloween in New Jersey Wednesday night. Governor Chris Christie postponed it by executive order until Monday. However, he did spend the day scaring the hell out of Republicans by praising President Obama.

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BILL MAHER, TALK SHOW HOST: But everyone's asking how was this storm going to affect the election? And I think it's given Obama momentum. I mean, obviously he didn't plan it. They'll try to blame it on him, of course. But it's because of how he's handled it. He handled this storm, he approached it so differently than Bush. He showed up.

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