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Late Night Thang — Binders? WTF?

Posted: October 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney | Tags: , , |54 Comments

Fact Check by the Boston Globe:

During the second presidential debate, Mitt Romney touted his efforts to hire women as governor of Massachusetts.

“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.”

Romney, however, did not have a history of appointing women to high-level positions in the private sector. Romney did not have any women partners as CEO of Bain Capital during the 1980s and 1990s.

The venture capital and private equity fields were male-dominated, to be sure, especially during Romney’s time. Women started to break into the upper echelons of the firm after it started a hedge fund, called Brookside in 1996.

Today, 4 of out of 49 of the firm’s managing directors in the buyout area are women.

Romney’s record on hiring women as a governor was much better. In February 2004, 10 of the 20 top positions in Romney’s administration were filled by women, including lieutenant governor Kerry Healey.

Uh, plus this:

… 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.)

Additional fact checking on the story from Raw Story can be found here.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s story about having “binders full of women” brought to him while assembling his Massachusetts state cabinet years ago is not true, according to a Boston Phoenix report Wednesday morning.

While Romney did get a binder listing qualified female candidates after being elected governor in 2003, reporter David S. Bernstein said, it was assembled not by his staff, but by a coalition of groups led by the bipartisan Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, which started collecting the information in 2002 as part of the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP).

“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,” Bernstein said. “They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.”

Binders of women? REALLY? REALLY? I mean REALLY?

Talk amongst yourselves cause it’s a post debate thread!

54 Comments on “Late Night Thang — Binders? WTF?”

  1. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    October 16, 2012 at 11:49 pm

    Goddard is a pro at the politics business.

    Taegan Goddard: Reaction to the Second Presidential Debate

    If President Obama had done this well in the first debate, most would have already written off Mitt Romney. Obama won the debate decisively.

    The president had a simple formula: Defend and explain his record while insisting that Romney wasn’t being truthful. He kept Romney on the defensive and came prepared with counter-punches to nearly every topic. It was devastatingly effective.

    The memorandum of understanding setting the rules for the debate — and the town hall format itself — went out the window pretty quickly. The debate turned confrontational within the first 20 minutes which probably pleased partisans. Both sides saw fire in their candidate. But it’s more likely that undecided voters didn’t like the confrontation at all.

    In particular, Romney doesn’t do testy well. He made a big mistake trying to roll over the moderator. He got away with it in the first debate but he looked mean tonight. His obsession with the rules also came off as petty.

    Romney was most effective when pointing out what Obama promised and what actually happened over the last four years. He scored many points But he lost most of them by not knowing his facts on what President Obama said the morning after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. Obama acted like a president in the exchange while Romney was much less. It was Romney’s Gerald Ford moment.

    Candy Crowley was an excellent moderator. She kept what could have been an unruly event on topic and very informative.

    • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
      October 17, 2012 at 12:02 am

      Crowly treated Mitt like the local unruly kindergarten brat

      • minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
        October 17, 2012 at 12:09 am

        I am putting this link in tomorrows post but thought you should see it: Mind The Binder – Talking Politics

        Hey, I know about that binder! And guess what — Mitt Romney was lying about it.

        From the rush transcript:

        CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?

        ROMNEY: Thank you. An 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?”

        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.

        I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.
        Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort.

        Not a true story.

      • minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
        October 17, 2012 at 12:21 am

        Damn, just read your post Kat and you already got that link…sorry!

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        October 17, 2012 at 12:26 am

        np I lifted it from a BB comment in previous threads!! We need to actually h/t Boston Boomer

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        October 17, 2012 at 12:45 am

        Chaucer Doth Tweet ‏@LeVostreGC
        The Wyf of Bathe saith: “My housbounde Jankyn also had a byndere ful of women.”

        for you JJ

  2. pdgrey's avatar pdgrey says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:04 am

    On CNN just now, conservative pundit Alex Castellanos said that women in America saw Romney and Obama as competing “jocks” in tonight’s debate, and that he doesn’t think women will be “turned on” by the performance they saw:

    I think — I thought a lot of women in America saw a debate tonight where two high school jocks didn’t like each other very much and I’m not sure they are going to be turned on by this debate.

    10:28 pm
    Right-wingers hammer Candy Crowley for telling the truth on Libya
    Share

    Mickey Kaus @kausmickey

    Crowley takes Obama’s side on what is a hotly disputed topic. Has no business doing that
    16 Oct 12

    Jeff Emanuel @jeffemanuel

    Yep. 100% wrong in her ride to Obama’s rescue RT @GerryDales: Did I just hear Candy Crowley get 14 days exactly backwards?
    16 Oct 12

    Matt Brooks @Mbrooksrjc

    Wow. Moderator as fact-checker. We have crossed the Rubicon. @GlennKesslerWP will moderate the next debate.
    16 Oct 12

    Adrian Gray @adrian_gray

    Candy Crowley …. wow
    16 Oct 12

    Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson

    Thanks, Candy!

  3. roofingbird's avatar roofingbird says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:04 am

    Re: Romney’s proposal to eliminate the tax on the dividends and interest earnings-its hard to see how anyone with a 401K would be happy about that, since all us retired folks still have to pay full tax on distributions from those same stocks.

    Course they could just eliminate those as well. Then what?

  4. pdgrey's avatar pdgrey says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:13 am

    Romney really practiced

    CNN is reporting that Romney, a Mormon “who doesn’t drink, practiced getting on bar stools.”

    • ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
      October 17, 2012 at 4:55 am

      LOL!

      Actually noticed how Obama sat on his seat, with one foot up on the bottom rung. Thought he looked relaxed & comfortable. Romney sat ramrod straight by comparison.

  5. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:17 am

    Charles P. Pierce ‏@ESQPolitics
    America Has Now Met the Many Romneys, and America Knows They Can Get Their Asses Kicked: At the #Debate http://ow.ly/exjIH

  6. pdgrey's avatar pdgrey says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:19 am

    Check this out
    http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/10/16/1022961/romney-warned-against-pointing-fingers-at-bush-administration-after-911-attacks/

  7. Beata's avatar Beata says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:27 am

    I’m so hyped up, I can’t sleep. The debate left me with such a good feeling, I’m even starting to like my chicken hair!

  8. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:40 am

    ThinkProgress ‏@thinkprogress
    Right-wing begins attacking Candy Crowley http://thkpr.gs/RDEUVe

  9. pdgrey's avatar pdgrey says:
    October 17, 2012 at 12:51 am

    Lifted from another poster:

    does this binder make my but.t look big?

  10. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    October 17, 2012 at 1:01 am

    Just for further condemnation of the asshole Rmoney.

    Mitt Romney’s Bain Helped Philip Morris Get U.S. High Schoolers Hooked On Cigarettes

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/mitt-romney-bain-philip-morris_n_1968152.html

  11. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    October 17, 2012 at 1:06 am

    ok .. try this on for size:

    Kat Huff (dakinikat) ‏@Dakinikat
    A big bird in every pot and a woman in every binder! #MittCampaignPromises

  12. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    October 17, 2012 at 1:12 am

    I agree with Nate Silver. I doubt if anything has really changed in the race since early fall. Obama is a slight favorite, no matter what snapshot polls may say, the fundamentals are the same.

    NYT/538: Instant Reaction Polls Show Narrow Obama Advantage in Second Debate

    But if you want my best guess: Throughout this election cycle, you would have done very well by predicting that the polls would eventually settle in at an overall lead for Mr. Obama of about two percentage points. Whenever his lead has been larger than that, it has come back to earth. But Mr. Obama has also rebounded at moments when the polls seemed to suggest an even closer race.

    A two-point lead for Mr. Obama is also close to what might be suggested by recent economic data as well as Mr. Obama’s net approval ratings.

    The FiveThirtyEight forecast had Mr. Obama as a 64.8 percent favorite to win the Electoral College in advance of the debate, but it will take several days for it to incorporate any of its effects.

    Prediction markets, which had nearly identical odds to the FiveThirtyEight model in advance of the debate, had Mr. Obama’s stock improving slightly over the course of the evening and put his odds at about 67 percent as of midnight on Wednesday.

  13. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    October 17, 2012 at 1:27 am

    Here’s a link to a google doc list of live web polls, from a Kos comment, in case you want to go vote for the debate winner.

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XTPpWUuwwKINOFwTFuUxsjUTPF4ilb-VACI9uh7_b8E/edit?pli=1

  14. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    October 17, 2012 at 2:03 am

    TBogg’s twittering is hilarious…

    http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/10/16/ebony-ivory-mudwrestle-and-poetry-slam-tonite/

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