I’m confused.  And worried.  No, I’m flat out flummoxed.

As we come down to the final days before the presidential election, the Associated Press is reporting that Mitt Romney has essentially closed the gender gap.  Even more amazing, they’re saying it’s a result of the first debate.  

I can’t think of a strong indictment of this, the first $1 billion presidential campaign.  If all that money can be poured into the process and President Obama’s 16 point lead among women can dissolve into a four point deficit because he looked bored and a little uninterested for 90 minutes while Romney’s flaming pants threatened to burn down the entire building.

I knew not everyone is consumed with presidential politics all the time.  People have jobs to do and kids to take care of and relationships to maintain.  But this has been going on for over a year and I would think that only dropping in on the news once in a while would give a person a clearer picture of the oxymoron that is Mitt Romney, the man Rachel Maddow calls a “soulless shape shifter.”  (I love Rachel.)  If you happened to watch a little Mitt three months ago, then a month ago, then at the first debate, only the name and the face would be familiar.  At that point, wouldn’t you have to ask yourself, “Who is this guy?”  Since no one can answer that question – even Mitt – wouldn’t you then have serious reservations about voting for him?  No candidate ever adheres to absolutely everything he says on the stump, but we all like to think we’re getting some sense of his general trajectory.  Listening to Romney over time, all you get is that somehow he can make the world prosperous and safe for all Americans.  Details to follow at some much later date.  Don’t worry about them.

Yesterday, I heard the Mittster give a “policy” speech (no actual policy included, of course) that sounded eerily like the GOP line Franklin Roosevelt mocked in his 1936 address to the New York State Democratic Convention:

Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”

I first heard that speech last year and it’s haunted me through this entire cycle because nothing has changed.  Seventy-six years and the song remains the same.  Well, conservatism is supposed to be about conserving the status quo.

But let’s get back to the gender gap or lack thereof.  Assuming the poll numbers are correct, in spite of the incredibly anti-woman policies in the Republican platform, in spite of the frightening and loony “legitimate rape” remarks made by Missouri’s Todd Akin and the “God wanted that to happen” comment on rape pregnancies dropped by Indiana’s equally nutty Richard Moudock, over 14 million women watched the first debate, bought Romney’s act and changed their allegiance.

This is why I’m flummoxed.

I don’t think women or any other group vote in one block and I think women inhabit the same intellectual spectrum as men, so I don’t understand how this could happen.  The talking heads say Romney looked presidential.  He did.  He does.  He’s the guy central casting sends you when your script calls for a distinguished guy to walk or drive by so an actual character can say, “Hey!  There’s the President!”  No lines.  He’s always reminded me of John Gavin’s character, Trevor Graydon, in “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”  Stiff, awkward and out of place.

Unfortunately, looking the part isn’t close to being enough.  Warren Harding based his entire career on looking like a state senator, then a U.S. senator, then a president.  In retrospect, though, no one thinks that was a good choice.  (Teapot Dome, anyone?)

Honestly, I don’t usually get all wound up over polls.  Pollsters love to analyze down to the finest detail.  It’s their job.  I wouldn’t be excited now if the race weren’t so close.  The numbers say Romney has a commanding lead among white men (read what you want into that), so Obama needs the women on his side.

So where are they?  Can one smooth, completely fallacious 90-minute show have convinced millions of women that we need to hand the reins over to a guy with a good haircut, a spray tan and 17 George W. Bush advisors who supports neither reproductive rights nor pay equity and whose entire “plan” for the future consists of the words “trust me?”  Is this a new version of “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”

No, no, no.  The AP has to be wrong.

I am now going to take three deep breaths, have one glass of wine and think about unicorns and rainbows and all the smart women I know who are NOT voting for Trevor Graydon.