NBC’s Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss Speaker Boehner’s influence within his own caucus and whether or not he can corral enough GOP House members to reach a deal on the fiscal cliff.

Thanks to Jody, Iowa for the question!

Edited by NBC's Jay Rankin.

TRANSCRIPT:

MURRAY: Welcome to another Inside the Boiler Room, I'm Mark Murray joined by Domenico Montanaro. Domenico, we actually have a question from Jody in Iowa who asks, "Do you think that Speaker Boehner will be able to corral enough of the Republican caucus to pass a bill to extend only the tax cuts for 98% of the people?" What do you think Domenico?

MONTANARO: I don't know.  I mean--if I knew that I would be getting paid a lot more than I am getting paid. I don;t know I mean I think that is the million dollar question. The trillion dollar question if you will. I don't -- I just -- it is very difficult to see how it gets done, it is also difficult to see how it doesn't get done.

MURRAY: It is interesting how it splices up in a couple different scenarios. On the one hand there is always this kind of unwritten rule that Republicans would only pass legislation that is supported by a majority of Republicans. If you are actually looking for what a majority of the caucus could support, well that becomes kind of dicey. But all of the sudden if you are talking and you only need a minority of Republicans, say getting fifty, sixty, seventy and with the Democrats signing on to the rest maybe that is kind of doable. We have already heard from a lot of lame duck members of Congress who have either lost or are retiring and people saying, 'Look, I could actually sign on.'

Domenico, I know you actually have done research on this, looking at these groups of people that aren't coming back to the next Congress and they might be able to make a deal.

MONTANARO: Yeah, I meant there is about seventy people who have either lost races in the primary, lost for the general election or have -- were in 55 or under races. Not all of those people are going to be people you can get to because some of them include people like Rep. Allen West, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Paul Ryan was at 55. So, maybe the number is closer to forty or fifty who you can really get to. But, there is at least a chunk of people who you know, Democrats and maybe Speaker Boehner would want to go to try and get things done. I do think it depends on how much John Boehner wants to remain speaker, how long he wants to continue to do that.

MURRAY: And there is one magic number -- 218. That is what would be needed to pass legislation in the House, that seems to be the most difficult hurdle.

MONTANARO: Sure is. I'm Domenico Montanaro --

MURRAY: -- and I'm Mark Murray. Thanks Jody!

Thanks to Yellowdog-Mark D for the question!!!

Video edited by NBC's Jordan Frasier.

With new polls out every day leading up to the election, NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss the importance of paying attention to margin of error and poll trends when examining the data.

Thanks to Steeler Fan_380417 for the question!

TRANSCRIPT:

Mark Murray: It's another Inside the Boiler Room question, this actually comes from Steeler Fan, Domenico. Steeler Fan asks I'm curious about the attacks on the polling by the Republicans. Do you think there is anything to the criticisms of the methodology and the polling results that we're all seeing right now?

Domenico Montanaro: Well look, I just think people need to really remember that polls are about margin of error and trends. Everybody that wants to look at specific numbers within polls, party ID, this turn out model, that or the other, you know, that stuff, everybody, especially the good polls, they do a pretty good job of trying to wait for those things, understand what they are. Let's look at the trend of these things. It always drives me nuts when you see somebody talk about, 'oh my gosh, you know, it's a ten point lead, it must be over in one poll!' That's not the way, that's not an appropriate way to look at polling I mean, you should look at a broad swath of these things you know, so, and it always seems to be that the side that's down makes these complaints.

MM: Well and you can always usually tell in body language too, I mean, you look at all the polls right now pretty much tell us what our gut confirms that Mitt Romney's down right now. We saw that after the conventions, we certainly saw that on the crisis that they've actually had and crisis communication on dealing with that 47%. When you look at everything the Romney campaign has done, this doesn't look like a campaign that's ahead. And kind of going to the polls, Domenico, there's this great example where even in the Florida Senate contest Connie Mack, on the Republican side, his campaign said look, these Quinnipiac New York Times/CBS polls that actually showed us down double digits were wrong. Here's our internal poll, we're down by 6. Well the thing is, well maybe the spread isn't double digits, maybe it's in the high single digits, but it does show you what's actually actually going on right now.

DM: Right, and again that's margin of error. I mean, if something, if something says someone's up by 11 and it's a margin of error of 3, it can be 8 to 14, you know, and if another poll shows it's 6 then you're looking at a broad range of these polls, but you want to look at the trend and the direction that these things go.

MM: And not only the trend and the direction, but the preponderance.

DM: Right.

MM: If they're all, 90% of them are pointing in one direction, chances are that 90% is right and the 10% might be wrong.

DM: Yeah, I think the other thing too like you said about body language and the other things campaigns do, when you see MItt Romney put an ad out where he's talking directly to camera to try to address and mitigate concerns over the 47%- you know look, those are the things that are important too, I think people start to rely too heavily on polling, and shouldn't rely a little bit on anecdotal evidence, reporting in the states, and what kinds of TV ads that these guys are running.

MM: Thanks for the question, Steeler Fan.

Thanks to Don't_Carry_It_All and Frank "Grimey" Grimes for the questions.

Video edited by NBC's Matt Loffman.

We are gearing up for our next installments of Inside the Boiler Room! If you have any questions for Mark and Domenico please post them below.

Don't forget, you can also tweet us, @NBCFirstRead, @mmurraypolitics or@DomenicoNBC, or post on our Facebook page.

As the 2012 general election heats up, Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss the return of issues from the 2008 election including President Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s birth certificate and how they might affect voters in November.

Thanks Steeler-Fan- 380417 for the question! Keep an eye out for our next installment of Inside the Boiler Room, and our next post asking for your questions!

Don't forget, you can also tweet us, @NBCFirstRead, @mmurraypolitics or@DomenicoNBC, or post on our Facebook page.

Edited by NBC's Matt Loffman.

NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss the possibility of a Romney-Santorum ticket.

Thanks to Bob in Virginia-5210392 for the question!

Video edited by NBC's Jay Rankin.