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What We Really Learned About Romney Last Night, Beyond the Binders Meme

Guest Blogger

This is a guest post by Nisha Chittal. Nisha Chittal is a social media strategist and writer in Washington, DC. She writes about politics, media, and technology, and her work has been featured in The American Prospect, Ms. Magazine, NPR.org, Jezebel, Mediaite, and more. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NishaChittal.

In just one question last night, Mitt Romney told us everything we needed to know about how disconnected he is from everyday women. His answers reflected a shockingly retrograde view of working women, and a total lack of interest in women’s issues. Behind his answers lies the reality that a Romney presidency has no plans to do anything to rectify gender inequality in the workplace.

When asked what he would do as president to rectify the fact that women earn 72% of what men earn for the same jobs, Romney stumbled unbelievably. It became clear that Romney has never given much thought to the economic inequalities faced by women, and was woefully unprepared for the question.

Instead of providing an answer about what he would do as president, he reflected on how while governor of Massachusetts, he had sought to hire more women in his cabinet and brought in “binders full of women” to find a women he could hire.
The binders full of women comment instantly became an internet meme, but if we keep poking fun at the meme we risk losing sight of the real issue here: that Romney actually plans to do nothing to help women, and in fact, opposed the Lily Ledbetter act that supported equal pay for women at the time that it was being passed.

Here’s what we really learned about Mitt Romney last night:

1) He has no plans to push for any policies that will push for gender equality in the workplace

It’s true that Romney hired more women in his administration as a result of the “binders of women” given to him by MassGap. This is great and both Romney and the efforts of MassGAP should be applauded. However, Romney dodged the question. He didn’t talk about legislation or policies he would put in place during his presidency. He told vague anecdotes about how once, he hired some women to work for him; but he showed a general lack of interest in doing anything to help American women at large overcome discrimination at work if he were President.

Looking forward, Romney identified zero plans or policies to rectify workplace inequality for women; it appears to be an issue that is not a priority to him. His solution was that he’ll create more jobs, so many jobs that employers will want to hire women, rather than making a concerted effort to solve for inequalities in the system.

2) He equates all women with moms, and ignores the millions of unmarried, childless women who vote too

This is a common theme in the Romney campaign: in trying to appeal to women, they speak directly to moms. Ann Romney’s convention speech focused on heralding moms and how hard they work. And no doubt they do – but it’s important to address all women, not just moms. When faced with a question about women at work, responding by talking about giving moms flexibility at work implies a) that flexibility is a privilege only available to moms and b) that the only people who face workplace inequality issues are moms, not childless women.

By addressing women’s issues as mom issues, he once again brushes aside the millions of childless women who are affected by workplace inequality as well – and who vote, too.

3) In Romney’s world, it is only women who need flexibility and need to cook dinner.

Let’s leave aside the patronizing, out-of-touch, condescending claim that women need to be home in time to cook dinner. I think that says enough about Romney’s worldview on its own: he still exists in a world where the women are always home to cook dinner.

What women actually want is to be treated as equals at work. Pushing the idea that women and women alone require “flexible” jobs because they have so many burdens outside of work is what makes employers apprehensive about hiring women and moms, and this idea needs to stop. Real equality means shared parenting and shared household duties so that women are able to take inflexible jobs too. Real equality means men stepping up and participating in household duties so that women aren’t always the ones forced to put their careers on the backburner. Flexibility shouldn’t be a women’s issue, it should be for everyone.

There were several other moments throughout the night that revealed the real Romney, but his answers to the question about equal pay for women were particularly enlightening. His answers demonstrated just how out of touch he is with real women, and how little he cares to do anything about it.

What would a Romney presidency do to rectify inequalities women face in the workplace? Behind all of his stumbles was his real answer: nothing.

64 thoughts on What We Really Learned About Romney Last Night, Beyond the Binders Meme

  1. I dont see the big surprise. The women in his family and community live a very different lifestyle from the average woman. At least the average woman of today in America and western Europe.

  2. For a businessman, he totally misses the problem with family leave and flex time policies that only benefit women. The Family and Medical Leave Act is specifically gender neutral because why would employers hire women if women are entitled to extra benefits? Making them gender neutral is what makes them work.

  3. What disturbed me the most was his positioning of women’s work equality and issues like flextime and maternity leave as the luxury of a strong economy. We need to get the economy moving again…so that employers can afford to give wome–Moms–family friendly jobs, amirite?

    Flextime (for jobs where it is possible) and parental leave (for all jobs) is not just for women. It is not an economic luxury. And it doesn’t decrease productivity.

    When Google increased their maternity leave policies to five paid months, they retained 50% more women employees after they had children. Fifty. That’s HUGE, and the extra two months paid leave is a pittance compared to training a new skilled worker.

    1. I think that is so important that you said that, Chava. Its ridiculous that there is this idea out there that paying a fair wage, giving flextime, and health care are luxuries. As if people’s lives were LESS messy and important during a sluggish/crappy economy. And EVERYONE has responsibilities and needs outside of work, not just moms or people with children. The assumption that not having children means that you don’t have any family responsibilities, friendship obligations or fun plans in place (gasp! People want to ENJOY their lives??! So bizarre!) is just ridiculous. Flexibility in a job means recognizing that everyone gets sick and everyone has a life outside of work. It means acknowledging that we are people and not robots and I feel like that should be a given, no matter what kind of economy we are in.

      1. This is why full employment is such a good thing — and why the 1%-ers don’t particularly want it. It means that employers have to treat employees as valuable instead of expendable interchangeable parts.

    2. When Google increased their maternity leave policies to five paid months, they retained 50% more women employees after they had children. Fifty. That’s HUGE, and the extra two months paid leave is a pittance compared to training a new skilled worker.

      Except this is not available to men, but who needs equal rights.

      1. Parental leave can and should be extended to both parents. That said, there is a stark physical component behind maternity leave, in case you’ve made it to this point in your life without noticing. I couldn’t walk around the block comfortably for six weeks, let alone work. And forget about working and pumping before three months.

        Demeaning Google’s effort to stop hemorrhaging female employes as misandry is ridiculous and stupid.

      2. Leave should be extended to all parents for care of children.

        Joe, when you have a major c-section, or a horribly involved vaginal birth, and ARE nursing, you too SHOULD get that benefit.

        That’s incredibly insensitive statement, in light of the fact that only one sex is giving birth at this point……….

  4. Ms. Chittal,
    I understand your need to attack Gov. Romney for purely political reasons but your analysis is horribly unsupported and is a grave distortion of reality.
    Gov. Romney was given 2 minutes to answer a question of complex magnitude regarding gender inequality in pay and so chose rather to spend his two minutes tearing down the Obama campaign’s portrayal of him as being misogynistic. He wanted to connect with the undecided voters and show them that he has always been one to actively diversify his own administration, while even working very closely with female Lt. Gov. during the time of office.
    He also went out of his way to show that he understood that the long 10+ hour days that are sometimes required in higher political office needs to be laxed to those women who need to go home and take care of their families. At no point did he say that only women should cook dinner or that only mothers should be home to take care of the family. We dont know whether he made the same exception for single-parent fathers (assuming any were in his administration) because the focal point of the question was on greater recognition of women in the workforce.
    President Obama went forth and outlined policies but even his own administration does not follow those policies. Women officials in the Obama administration are currently underpaid in relation to their male counterparts, but of course, President Obama does not mention that at all during his 2 minute rebuttal.
    The election cycle is all about image and Gov. Romney sought to show that he does care about the struggle that women workers endure, besides just pay inequality. However, with only 2 minutes to work with, he was not able to answer every aspect of the question AND protect his image from the distortion of the Obama campaign. The question of gender equality is a complex question that was given barely 5 minutes of consideration.
    There are 780,000 more unemployed women now (married and unmarried) than when President Obama took office. Gov Romney sought to focus on the fact that so many women care just about getting A job than anything else. I can tell you that I have been unemployed for over 1.5 years and I just want to be able to make a living and take care of my family. I feel so useless that I can’t even get an interview, even with a graduate degree in hand. Gov Romney sought to relate to the 780,000+ like me who just want A job in this economy that will enable us to move forward in our careers.
    It’s not fair for you to distort a simple answer. It wasn’t perfect and it did not fully address the question but you and all the others that are laughing their butts off over “binders of women” is disgusting. This country is struggling considerably and all you care about is taking one point and distorting it horribly just to mischaracterize one candidate as uncaring and misogynistic while the other is a savior for women.
    The next time you write an article, please really think about the other side of the story before writing such a one-sided piece of distortion. It just infuriates me when I read such close-minded writings.

    2. Amazing the long-winded length you went to in defense of Mittens. You paint it to be an inability to answer the question fully based on the time given. Yet Obama was able to. So then what’s the difference? Obviously the difference is the substance and experience that each candidate was able to draw upon, and Rmoney’s lack of substance and experience with regards to women’s equality was painfully obvious, for instead of being able to point to something that could answer the question succinctly, he fumbled around as best he could, which as we know often ends up being a colossal Mittens gaffe, par for the course. Try some real critical thinking instead of that faux crap you have duped yourself into believing to be an actual intellectual exercise.

    3. – Noting that women get paid less than men in the Obama administration without providing context? Check.
      – Noting that a lot of women lost their jobs during the recession? Check.
      – Pig-ignorant assumption that Romney will magically make these jobs come back? Check.
      – Whining that Obama and liberals aren’t faaaaaaaair to Romney? Check.

    4. This blog is not the place for cutting and pasting Republican talking points. You make it clear you did not bother to read the actual post in which the writer says clearly that the “binders of women” meme, while amusing, detracts from the fact that the candidate offered no policy. So no “laughing her butt off”; no characterizing anyone as a savior, etc. Reading before replying and reading comprehension — it’s fundamental. You and Gov. Romney rattling off statistics and claiming to “relate” to women in not a policy proposal, nor a reply to this post.

    6. He also went out of his way to show that he understood that the long 10+ hour days that are sometimes required in higher political office needs to be laxed to those women who need to go home and take care of their families. At no point did he say that only women should cook dinner or that only mothers should be home to take care of the family. We dont know whether he made the same exception for single-parent fathers (assuming any were in his administration) because the focal point of the question was on greater recognition of women in the workforce.

      Wrong.

      The question asked of Mr. Romney was specifically about pay equality. Furthermore, the questioner made absolutely no mention of work life balance or flexibility issues in her query to Romney. But that didn’t fit into Romney’s talking points, so he side-stepped the issue entirely and didn’t discuss it at all.

    7. Anybody else suspect that the Romney camp has people like “Reilly” here monitoring online discussions of his debate performance in order to spam with supportive comments?

      Show of hands

      1. *raises hand* Yep. Crooks and Liars got hit with a lot of these people last Presidential election with McCain talking points. Not surprised they are showing up again.

    8. Romney said all he needed to on the subject of prioritizing or even understanding what American women have to say about the running of their country he chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. Ryan opposes Roe v Wade AND Lilly Ledbetter–’nuff said. When the time came to give half the population biological and wage equality, he said “No.” Everything else is Monday-morning quarterbacking.

      1. But SF, all us ladies are supposed to swoon over Ryan, ’cause he’s so dreamy looking, and has such strong muscles!

        Apparently after the last Presidential election, when the GOP thought all us silly girls would vote for McCain because his running mate was such a pretty, down to earth, little lady, they realized what a miscalcuation they had made. Except they have basically made the similarly erroneous conclusion that Ryan will bring in the women voters because of his good looks and every guy demeanor.

        They should just make their slogan “The Republican Party, underestimating women and their intelligence for nearly a half century!”

    9. Reilly, what’s really and truly disgusting is Romney’s constant and ongoing displays of utter insensitivity and lack of basic empathy for whole groups of people (including the women in those binders). People have to laugh about Binders Full of Women to avoid thinking about how Romney would ruin people’s lives if he became president because he simply doesn’t care about or relate to the vast majority of people in this country, and how scary that would be.

  5. Great post, but I think you’re giving Romney credit where it’s not due:

    It’s true that Romney hired more women in his administration as a result of the “binders of women” given to him by MassGap. This is great and both Romney and the efforts of MassGAP should be applauded.

    Well, initially, yeah. But

    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.)

    I’ll applaud MassGAP. Romney? No.

    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?

    1. 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?

      Yeah, I noticed that, too. “I just SIMPLY could NOT find a single qualified woman! It was SO HARD! I mean everyone who was qualified for the position was a man! But I care about wo—mothers (*cough*) so much that I told my people to go find me some women that could do the job! I mean, would they be as qualified? Probably not! But, still, I knew I had to have a few ladies in the group, right? Who would bring in the cupcakes on birthdays and organize the office holiday gatherings? So I just knew I had to find a few moms to hire. I would be slumming, obviously, but you know how it goes when a mom just gets it into her head that she’s gonna take off the ole apron, fire up the crock pot, and head out to work, amirite?? Heh heh! Anyway, so I support ladies and I was willing to do what it takes to find the RARE qualified women/woman (b/c it might be just one) out there. Because I support families and moms and all of that good stuff. ” That’s what it felt like to me.

      1. I had just pulled an all-nighter, so I was drifting in and out of consciousness during this part, but I do remember having the exact same reaction. “He just COULDN’T find ANY women qualified for the job! Poor guy!”

  6. From the transcript:

    We’re going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I’m going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they’re going to be anxious to hire women. In the — in the last women have lost 580,000 jobs. That’s the net of what’s happened in the last four years. We’re still down 580,000 jobs. I mentioned 31/2 million women, more now in poverty than four years ago.

    What we can do to help young women and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers that are looking to find good employees and bringing them into their workforce and adapting to a flexible work schedule that gives women opportunities that they would otherwise not be able to afford.

    There is something to the idea that when employment rises, everyone gets more jobs. When employers are desperate for employees, yes, the employees have more negotiating power. But if a booming economy could solve the problems of persistent sexism and inequality in the way our workforce is structured? It would have done so under Clinton. Or hell, under Ike.

  7. “He equates all women with moms, and ignores the millions of unmarried, childless women who vote too”

    No-one ever discriminates against unicorns.

    1. I don’t know much about what “no-one” does with unicorns, but I do know that unmarried women make up 23.6% of the electorate. Put down the fairy tales and do some research, please.

        1. Oh, sorry! There have been some trolls lately. You’re absolutely right. And, as thanks to Romney, I’d vote for a unicorn before I’d vote for him.

  8. What women actually want is to be treated as equals at work.[…] Real equality means shared parenting and shared household duties so that women are able to take inflexible jobs too.

    Are you saying that we do not need for workplaces to be more flexible? Surely the point is that today parenting and household duties are in fact not shared equally, and women do in fact have greater need of flexible working conditions?

    I do get that Romney exaggerates this effect. For example when he says “We’re going to have to have employers […] that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they’re going to be anxious to hire women” then he seems to be implying that employers will only hire women when they are desperate. Which is pretty bad, but hardly surprising considering the speaker.

    But the difference is still there, and we do have to work with world we are actually living in.

    1. Are you saying that we do not need for workplaces to be more flexible?

      I don’t see how that’s a reasonable take-away. This is a common talking point in feminist discourse, but it seems much more rare to acknowledge that some jobs will ALWAYS be inflexible. I work 12+ hours a day and frequently have to come in on weekends. It’s the nature of the job. If I wanted to have a family, I shouldn’t have to give up my access to this career.

      1. If you can convince your partner to take over the parenting, then you might not need to. However, spending a lot of time with your family and a lot of time with your job becomes impossible for large enough values of “a lot of time”. Some careers are pretty much incompatible with an active parenting role.

        Making the “absent mother” as accepted as the “absent father” might be good from a basic equality perspective, but for most mothers this is not an attractive alternative.

        The OP states: “Flexibility shouldn’t be a women’s issue, it should be for everyone”. My point was: Women, today, want more flexibility than men. Whether this would still be a case in some theoretical utopia where men and women take equal parts of the parenting responsibilities is fairly irrelevant to the discussion.

        1. Flexibility for “everyone” matters because it opens up jobs like mine to women who have children and are in het partnerships. Women are not a monolith. I do not want to give up my career for children ever. If potential partners have more flexibility, I don’t have to.

          Making the “absent mother” as accepted as the “absent father” might be good from a basic equality perspective, but for most mothers this is not an attractive alternative.

          Nice shaming, bro. I’m sure it’s completely irrelevant if women want the kind of careers I’m talking about, right? god forbid that kind of thing be acceptable.

        2. @PrettyAmiable: Shaming? It was the opposite in the sense that I admitted it would be good to remove the shaming from the equation (or at least the gender difference). But I also do not see it as a solution for anything but a minority of cases.

          Anyway, you seem to be agreeing with me that more workplace flexibility would be good, so I am not sure what we are arguing over.

          You do not think that women, statistically speaking, are significantly more interested in a flexible workplace than men?

          (And I do find the obvious implied strawman of “women are not a monolith” somewhat annoying)

  9. He equates all women with moms, and ignores the millions of unmarried, childless women who vote too

    (The word for a woman with a child is “mother”. “Mom” is a name that child might (or might not) call its mother.)

    /pet peeve, sorry

      1. Yep. After fifteen years of pediatricians, teachers and so forth saying “And what does Mom think?” and so forth (apparently I gave birth to several scores of people, some of whom are older than I am), I am very much over the word “Mom” as anything but a form of informal direct address from a child to its own mother. Actually, I have even, at times, banned it as a form of address from my own children to me as a result of Mom overexposure (and because it whines better than other common intimate terms for “mother”).
        It’s not so much that “Mom” is informal as that it’s intimate.

  10. The first point, about policies that will push for gender equality, makes me think of the vice presidential debate, when Paul Ryan brought up Mitt’s compassion for a family in his church. When the family was in a car accident and two of the sons were paralyzed, Romney went over at Christmas and brought gifts and said he’d pay for the boys’ college. Which is really compassionate and generous, and I’m sure the family was very grateful.

    But it was one family. Just like the thousands of binder-women he hired were for one cabinet. And unless he’s going to visit every family in the U.S. to make sure no one is laid low by medical expenses, and go from business to business to make sure each one is using equitable hiring and salary practices, his huge and warm heart means absolutely nothing for the country as a whole. When it comes to helping the country you’re leading, that’s where policy comes into play, and he has no policy.

    1. Talk about pet peeves, the effort by the Romney camp to shift focus onto how he is such a good guy because he has done nice things for individual people is a huge one for me.

      While it’s quite nice (if true) that Romney attempted to do right by a family struck by tragedy, or with his own gubernatorial administration, that says absolutely nothing about what his policies will be if he is elected President. His being a “good man” is all well and good, but stop obfuscating and tell us in specifics what you plan to do with your economic policy already!

      1. the effort by the Romney camp to shift focus onto how he is such a good guy because he has done nice things for individual people is a huge one for me.

        This. Have you noticed that in every debate, he brings up this guy he met this one time who happened to be in the particular predicament in question?

        His stance never seems informed by facts and figures, but strictly by this recent college graduate he met who is looking for a job, or this Welsh immigrant, or, or, or. Read a book, bro.

        The irony being that he probably was told that he seems like a monstrous douche know-it-all if he doesn’t acknowledge he sometimes talks to the unemployed or white immigrants.

    2. Yeah, he can have the most gender balanced cabinet ever built from the binders o’ women he had someone ELSE run out and acquire for him, but unless he makes it a policy that every damn office comes with its nice set of matching binders, I’m not believing a damn word he says. Particularly when he returned to “JOBS JOBS JOBS, but I’m not saying how I’m gonna get them to you.”

    3. compassion for a family in his church

      *eye roll* When he shows compassion for someone who follows another religion or a TGBL family, then I might be able to believe he cares.

  11. The jobs, jobs, jobs, talk is a bullshit smokescreen anyway. The direct action taken by the GOP in particular against women makes me wonder if they’d be happiest if they could ship us off to Gilead.

    Wouldn’t it be nice to see a presidential candidate in the debates that is a strong force for progressive values.. oh, wait. She’s in jail.

  12. Romney’s recent false move to the left needs to be challenged heavily. There were no binders of women during the primaries – it was more Trapper Keepers of women – trapped and kept at home to take care of large families.

    When he’s in office they’re gonna roll the clock back to the 1950s. Romney’s been very effective about co-opting just barely enough of the Democratic platform to convince swing voters to go his way.

    1. the crucial aspect of Rommney campaign hitherto as you rightly, and possibly another 47% of the electorate as well,has been to say as much as possible, to be understood, and as little as possible so as not to encounter the danger of any unforeseen insight about what his administration would want to change if he were to be elected.
      It goes without saying that the strategy he has adopted is part of a larger scheme to undermine most of the positive news which has come out of the post 9/11 debris left behind by the Bush administration-The contest today is markedly much more ideologic in its direction than it has been for decades.
      given the imbalance with respect to the media presence, the US public would be well advised to pay more attention to what has not been said, rather than lose itself in the harmless platitudes of an elitiarian and privleged view of an America which is as much a victim of the demons its insatiable consumer economy has released, and as also the proponent of the values which have created the global monster of the financial insitutions.The American Way of Life is an anachronism which rightly has no place in a globalized world, of competing national and iternational interests,comitted to a shared responisiblity for the universal human rights issues, and a new understanding about the fundamentals of economic growth.
      The US should be prepared to leave the kindergarden and finally make its way responsibly as part of a global family. Having the right president could help.

      2. The US should be prepared to leave the kindergarden and finally make its way responsibly as part of a global family.

        Umm the USA left kindergarten in 1941, yeah I know we’re asses for repeatedly reminding everyone of this, but we earned the right to do so. More improtantly, I can point to any number of horrible things every other country on the planet has done over the years, so singling the USA out for all the world’s problems is too easy of an out. Though it’s nice to have a demon to blame for everything isn’t it?

  14. Two qualified women were available, and at the door.
    Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, Green Party candidates.
    They were denied entry and both were jailed. Not much has changed since Victoria Woodhull’s candidacy.
    Romney and Bain already have proved where they want qualified women: in the unemployment line. Binders? Hell yeah, bound by workplace and judicial gag orders, if neocons have their way.

  15. Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, and Justice Party’s Rocky Anderson, the Constitution Party’s Virgil Goode will debate moderated by Larry King.

    They were shut out of big media, but at least someone is letting them talk.

      1. Tues the 23 I think.

        This from FoxChicago:

        “The debate was organized by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, which has criticized the debates between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney for excluding third-party candidates and coming off as too programmed.

        Organizers say at-home viewers will be encouraged to submit real-time questions on the social media like Twitter, where they’ll get King’s attention with the “AskEmThisLarry” hashtag.”

        Read more: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/19847003/third-party-debate-coming-to-chicago-moderated-by-larry-king?clienttype=printable#ixzz29hwRY8W2

  16. A lot of good points in this article. I especially appreciate Reilly’s input. Will you be doing a blog on how women have fared during Obama’s presidency…pointing out the number of women unemployed during his term, that the women in his administration (like his predecessors) are paid less than the men? What will he do in the next 4 yrs to put women and men back to work? Has Obama kept any of the promises he made to women?
    How do you feel about the the comment ”vote like your lady parts depend on it” that was posted on Obama’s website, but taken down several hours later, due to outrage? Wouldn’t you want to vote with your brain?
    Comments have been made that Romney’s “gonna roll the clock back” if elected. Did he roll the clock back as Gov. in Mass? Were women in Mass. sent home to clean, cook and pop out babies?
    Just a few questions from an ol’ fart.

    1. Well, he kept his promise not to do an end run around Roe v. Wade through legislative means. Although, I guess your point is that that is not a promise to women but a promise to all Americans? Therefore he did keep his promise to all Americans. Well played for your roundabout method of establishing that reproductive freedom is not just a “women’s issue”! I totally did not see that twist coming!

      I suspect all your other “I saw the Paper Chase 17 times in the theatre” questions are just a ruse designed to reveal how you think Obama is comparatively the better choice than Romney. Very clever “old fart”, very clever! But please be careful, I hear the Romney partisans can be an unfortunate combination of humorless, obfuscating and obtuse, and getting them riled up at your sneaky Obama support is probably an ailment you don’t need at your age.

    2. Hmm, smell that? It’s the whiff of desperation floating off Randy/Reilly with their GOP talking points, distortions and twisting of the truth.

      Here’s the deal, the President has a far better track record of having women’s backs when it comes to reproductive rights and fair pay. The talking point about women’s unemployment stats is silly, really, because if the President did attempt to do anything directly to create more jobs specifically for women there would be all sorts of consternation coming from the Repubs about him being a reverse sexist, socialist, bully further pushing the reach of big government onto all the hardworking, real Americans.

      And I will continue to vote like my lady parts depend on it, as long as you and Mitt and the rest of your GOP cronies keep trying so desperately to legislatively micromanage the “lady parts” of every singly uterus having person in this country. No big government intrustion into our lives! small government is best! is apparently only the rally cry as long as it applies to middle aged white men, the rest of us can suck it.

      It’s a joke. Yet so not actually funny.

    3. How do you feel about the the comment ”vote like your lady parts depend on it” that was posted on Obama’s website, but taken down several hours later, due to outrage? Wouldn’t you want to vote with your brain?

      I am a native speaker of American English, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody use “like” to mean “with”. Have you, Randy?

    1. About a comment taken totally out of context? Even the article you link takes great pains to talk about how her comment was taken out of context. It’s kind of meaningless, though I’m not really a big fan of her discounting how much a difference money makes for opportunities.

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