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Pure fekkin WIN.
Of course, Clinton would have totally owned both debates,
hit on the moderator, and banged Romneys wife...
He was slime, but MAN he had style.

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In fairness, "binders" was most likely a slip of the tongue. But Romney said it in an effort to obfuscate and pivot from the issue at hand: equality for women. He avoided the real question, and that, and his remark, spoke volumes.

Even as a slip of the tongue, this odd phrase betrays Romney's true lack of understanding, knowledge and comfort level on women's equality. And besides the binders comment, there are several problems with the story Romney told Tuesday night.

First of all, it is not true. The "binder" of women's résumés was prepared before the election by the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project, a coalition of nonpartisan women's groups. When Romney won, the women -- not in binders -- gave him the résumés.

Romney told that story in an effort to demonstrate how well his administration had done in hiring women. Except it didn't. A study by the University of Massachusetts and the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy shows that the percentage of women in senior positions during his tenure actually declined. It went from 30% when Romney took office to 27% when he left and up to more than 33% after the new governor took over.

Also, it boggles the mind that throughout his decades-long career in business, Romney had not come across any qualified women he could appoint to his Cabinet. The Romney campaign points to longtime aide Beth Myers, but she was not in the Cabinet.

The more reasonable explanation is that diversity of gender, or any kind of diversity, was never an important tenet of corporate leadership for Romney. Which is why he did not proactively seek out the "binders full of women": Women's groups, in fact, came looking for him.

All of this goes to the heart of why Romney has had such a hard time winning over the women's vote. He answered the audience member's question from the standpoint of a detached CEO who knew that he had to find qualified women to serve in his administration come hell or high water, given the vast disparity between men and women holding management positions. He must have known he would be blasted if he didn't do it. In this day and age, this should be a no-brainer. You should not ask the American people to give you a medal for hiring qualified women.

The dissonance when it comes to the governor and women went even further at the debate. Romney not only couldn't answer the question about women' equality, he could not even answer a question about outlawing AK-47s without bringing up single mothers. Saying he did not believe in changing gun laws, he seemed to equate children raised by single parents with the "culture of violence." I may be wrong, but I don't think that is a good strategy to get struggling single moms to vote for you.

President Obama, in contrast, answered the equality question not just from a personal standpoint as a father but also as a commander in chief who signed a bill into law that guaranteed women could receive equal pay for equal work, the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Romney conspicuously never said whether he supported that act. The president's approach was much more in synch with what women want to hear and with what all Americans know to be fair.

The binders comment was even more unfortunate for Romney in that he said it in the midst of Obama's very strong showing. The president clearly showed that he had the fight, the passion and the commitment to continue to work for middle-class voters -- on jobs, on health care, on taxes, on education, on immigration and, yes, on women's issues.

This all underscores Romney's inability to really connect with voters. Although he seemed to win a little more favor among women after the first debate, I predict binders of polling data as to why that movement stopped after Tuesday night. http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/17/opinion/cardona-binders-women/index.html
?hpt=hp_t2

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Is this something that's hard for liberals to understand?

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it's just funny that conservatives can't seem to separate the image of a woman - even a professional, working woman - from the image of a mother, cooking and taking care of children.

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oI'm sure there were others who needed flexibility because of one reason or another. But somehow Romney thought this example showed his...compassion?...and didn't realize it wouldn't go over that well with women. That's all.

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Also not the one complaining because he'd apparently notice when there were no women in the list of potential senior officials, and ask to see some resumes.

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ROMNEY: Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.

And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, “How come all the people for these jobs are — are all men.” They said, “Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.” And I said, “Well, gosh, can’t we — can’t we find some — some women that are also qualified?”

ROMNEY: And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.

I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks,” and they brought us whole binders full of women.

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What actually happened was that in 2002 — prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration — a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I’ve checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I’ve just presented it is correct — and that Romney’s claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false. http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/talkingpolitics/archive/2012/10/16/mi
nd-the-binder.aspx

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A coalition of Massachusetts women's groups says GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney did, in fact, receive binders with the names of potential female candidates for high-level positions when he was governor. But representatives of the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project note the effort, which did increase the number of women in top positions, started before Romney was elected in 2002. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765612238/Binders-full-of-women-eff
ort-predated-Romney.html

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BOSTON - At the presidential debate last night, questions arose regarding how women candidates were identified for potential appointment to leadership roles by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. What follows details the process that was created by the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus in 2002 to maximize opportunities for women to be considered for key roles in Massachusetts government.

The Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP) was founded under the leadership of the MA Women’s Political Caucus in 2002 to address the issue of the under-representation of women in appointed positions in Massachusetts government. MassGAP brought together a nonpartisan coalition of over 25 women's organizations to recruit women to apply for government positions within the administration, and recommend qualified women for those positions.

Prior to the 2002 gubernatorial election, MassGAP approached the campaigns of candidates Shannon O'Brien and Mitt Romney and asked them both to commit to: (1).“Make best efforts” to ensure that the number of women in appointed state positions is proportionate to the population of women in Massachusetts; (2). Select a transition team whose composition is proportionate to the women in the Commonwealth; and (3). Meet with MassGAP representatives regularly during the appointments process. Both campaigns made a commitment to this process.

http://www.mwpc.org/news/images/PhotoofBinder3.JPG

Following the election, MassGAP formed committees for each cabinet post in the administration and began the process of recruiting, interviewing, and vetting women applicants. Those committees selected top applicants for each position and presented this information to the administration for follow-up interviews and consideration for appointment.

MassGAP is proud to have the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus as our lead sponsor and we are grateful to all of the women who have devoted their time and energy to making this project a continued success. The Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1971 to increase the number of women elected and appointed to public office and public policy positions and to maximize the participation of women of all ages in the political process.More at http://www.mwpc.org/news/featured.php

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First of all, according to MassGAP and MWPC, Romney did appoint 14 women out of his first 33 senior-level appointments, which is a reasonably impressive 42 percent. However, as I have reported before, those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn't care about -- and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about -- budget, business development, etc. -- went to women.

Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office.)

Third, note that in Romney's story as he tells it, this man who had led and consulted for businesses for 25 years didn't know any qualified women, or know where to find any qualified women. So what does that say? http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/talkingpolitics/archive/2012/10/16/mi
nd-the-binder.aspx

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