Republicans pressed hard against the focus on Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” cabinet possibilities in his Massachusetts gubernatorial days with the message that President Obama is offering an “empty binder.”
“Obama has a weakness when it comes to the question, will the next four years really be any different? And that weakness is, it’s an empty binder. They won’t be different,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told reporters on a conference call today.
“You compare Governor Romney’s record on — on hiring and promoting women in the workplace. It’s second to none, number one. You compare his record against Barack Obama. There’s no comparison,” Priebus said.
“Listen, Barack Obama’s got a book written about a hostile work environment. And I would like to see what the comparison is between women’s salaries at the — at the White House, and men’s. I mean the fact is, he’s got no ground to stand on. It’s all a bunch of small ball because he can’t win on the big issues.”
“It’s the president that does have the empty binder, because there’s no legislation planned for the second term other than more spending and how are we going to afford that given our $16 trillion in debt,” said Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.).
“But one of the things about this whole focus of the Democrats on the binder issue is because they don’t want to talk about the issues that really matter to all voters. All issues are women’s issues, and it’s very diminishing that they only want to focus on a limited number of issues, as opposed to how about — how are we going to make sure that we get people back to work,” she said.
The Romney campaign also sent out numerous emails on Obama’s “empty binder” when it comes to women in the workplace.
The Democrats put Lilly Ledbetter, the woman behind the Fair Pay Act that Obama signed as his first bill, and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on a conference call today.
“I worked tirelessly at a tire factory for 17 years. And I never asked for flexibility or any special treatment because I was a woman. Mitt Romney’s solution last night on leveling the playing field was to point out he once had a binder full of women applicants,” Ledbetter told reporters. “That binder didn’t help me at Goodyear.”
The DNC also put on the line Jesse Mermell, executive director of the Massachusetts Women’s Caucus that assembled the binders of women for Romney.
“To be perfectly clear, Mitt Romney did not request those resumes,” Mermell told reporters. “Then after the election, our group approached the Romney transition team with the resumes, or the so-called binders full of women. Now, why did Mitt Romney need binders full of women to find qualified candidates? Why didn’t his staff already have women in mind for these positions? Were there no women in his 25 years of professional experience that he had worked with, and thought might be qualified?”
Vice President Joe Biden joked about it on the campaign trail.
“Oh, the idea that he had to go and ask where a qualified woman was — he just should have come to my house,” Biden said at an event in Greeley, Colo. “He didn’t need a binder.”
Biden’s a woman? Or is he just confused?
Both…
No. A house is not a home, remember? He runs one. That smile is for customers.
He’s a liar, that’s for sure. He lied about Syria in the VP debate:
US consulate in Benghazi was a hub for recruiting jihadis to fight for al Qaeda in Syria
Who denied the Benghazi Consulate enhanced security? Would it have been approved if Ambassador Stephens had been straight? Did Obama get his anti-gay tendencies from his Muslim father, or his Muslim step-father?
Ask it! Yes.
because word’s out he’s gay himself — not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld says — and it’s because his pornographer-pedophile mentor “Pop” — aka “Frank” aka Frank Marshall Davis — who, some say, was Barry’s real father, may have turned him as a teenager.
These attacks on Romney’s comment make Team Obama look so desperate.
Dragging out Ms. Ledbetter. No one will say this but her lawsuit made hiring women
a more expensive proposition for businesses bc of its record keeping requirements. So
companies less likely to hire women bc they fear retribution lawsuits if they ever lay them
off. I wish Romney would at least say that making US businesses less competitive is not
a good strategy for getting anyone back to work. And his easy answer on that question was
to create job opportunities for women. All of these ladies pretending it’s 1952 make me sick.
empty suit, empty chair, empty binder … with all these empties piling up, it’s time to take Obama to the recycler! Maybe he can be remade into something useful, like a TV weatherman …
When liberals are losing the argument (as they always do when the playing field is anywhere near level), they twist the English language to the left.
That’s been going on forever. We cannot let our enemies dictate the language that we use and set the terms of the debate.
what could they be talking about? every executive recruiter, and I have dealt with a lot of them, has a “Binder” or “Notebook” or collection of resumes of prospective clients. I would have thought that trying hard to find top-level women for top jobs in Mass. [they say he put 10 in 20 top jobs, which seems very good for the times] would be a plus for women. But more broadly, we are just seeing another example in the Big Bird, bullying, personal attacks, AK-47sm and other diversions from the main issue: jobs and the economy, where Obama has a terrible 4 year record of failure and Mitt has an excellent past.