The YWCA conducted a nationwide poll in late August and early September in an effort to determine what women want. They discovered that women want a second term for Barack Obama by a 49-31 margin. That number came before Clint Eastwood and Bill Clinton’s speeches. It came before Romney’s disastrous comments on Libya. It came before the world saw Romney’s now-famous 47 percenters speech. It came before Romney openly wondered why airplane windows don’t open and his wife questioned his mental health. It came before Romney’s polling began to collapse.

So, I think we can safely say that Romney’s standing among women has not improved since the YWCA conducted their poll. And that means that one of Romney’s main goals in the debates ought to be making himself more appealing to women as a candidate. However, most people think Romney has to be very aggressive and combative in the debates because he needs to make something happen. If he and Obama just have an amicable display of their differences, nothing much will change in the trajectory of the race.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Romney has to challenge the president without coming across as a dick. Certainly, he has no easy job here, especially since he is anti-choice and the standard-bearer for a party that thinks contraception is for sluts, that transvaginal ultrasounds should be compulsory for women seeking abortions, and that the federal exception for rape victims should be narrowed to include only “legitimate” and “forcible” rapes. Romney’s hostility to teachers and public education won’t help him. His hostility to the president’s health care bill won’t help him. Threatening to pay for tax breaks for millionaires by taking away “loopholes” like the Home Mortgage Deduction and the per-child deduction won’t help him. He can’t win by highlighting his policies because his policies are not family friendly. There’s a limit to how combative he can be without alienating most women. And the president will be able to counter nearly everything Romney says by pointing out positions and policies he has that are more aligned with what women say they want.

Most of the people covering the debates in the media will be men. And they will have a totally different standard for what Romney needs to do than most women. If he fails to really take the president on but actually improves his likability with women, he will probably have done a better job of improving his prospects than if he is extremely aggressive and argumentative. In other words, I can easily see a situation where the male pundits are impressed by a bunch of attack lines and “zingers,” but where the post-debate focus groups show that women hated all that crap. Conversely, I can see a situation where the male pundits accuse Romney of taking a dive, only to discover that women really warmed up to him.

Of course, men count, too. If he improves his standing with men more than he hurts his standing with women, he could come out even or perhaps ahead. The challenge there is that about 10 million more women voted in 2008 than men. That pattern will probably repeat itself. So, doing better with men only works if he does a lot better with men. It’s not a gamble I would take.