In the hours after the debate, Democrats began making fun of Romney for saying that as governor he had gotten “binders full of women” to find qualified appointees — a comment they would never have criticized, or even noticed, had it been said by one of their own. Almost nobody objects to making a special effort to find qualified women to apply for important positions, and Romney’s phrasing was not even especially awkward. The attempt to manufacture an example of Romney’s condescension or cluelessness is evidence of how much more deeply invested the Obama campaign is in its “war” than in America’s actual wars…

Romney’s best moment in the campaign was the first debate, after which his poll numbers jumped among men and women alike. He made no gender-based appeal in that debate at all. Instead, he concentrated on making the case that he would be a better president than Obama, and in particular that his agenda would be better than Obama’s when it comes to wages, job creation, energy prices, and health care. He should learn from that success — and worry not about the Democrats’ binders full of talking points.

[T]he best sign for Romney may have actually been the the Obama campaign’s decision to make the main takeaway Tuesday’s debate Romney’s comment that he received “binders full of women” when he was trying to hire females to top positions as governor of Massachusetts.

The fact that Obama is making an issue of this suggests to me that his campaign is increasingly worried about signs that Romney is closing the gender gap, which would mean lights out for his reelection given Romney’s advantages among male voters.

It’s hard to see what argument Obama is advancing here, however. The attack isn’t even that Romney didn’t hire enough women as governor. It’s that he had to consult a binder prepared by a women’s group to find more female candidates when he wanted to hire more women. Is the suggestion that if he cared about women more he would have just hired his friends and associates rather than draw from a wider applicant pool?

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Romney loses women on Nov. 6 by 8.5 points — his average deficit in those three polls among registered voters. (His average deficit among likely voters in those same three polls was 7 points.)

That would be a better showing among women than John McCain made in 2008 (lost women by 13), George Bush made in 2000 (lost women by 11) and Bob Dole made in 1996 (lost women by 16). It would be roughly equal to the eight-point margin that George H.W. Bush lost women to Bill Clinton in 1992.

So, for all of the chatter about Romney’s women problems, he is currently positioned to do as well or better than every Republican presidential candidate among female voters save one: George W. Bush in 2004 who lost among women by just three points to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

In the last half a dozen years, voters have responded more to events, emerging issues, and leaders’ strengths and weaknesses. Many switched parties to vote for Obama. Some, many of them women, are switching now to vote for Romney.

Women tend to be more risk-averse than men, and the gender gap grew when Reagan Republicans were depicted as scaling back welfare-state protections.

The debates may have shifted the perception of risk. The downcast Obama and the cackling Biden may have sounded dangerously risky. Many women may have felt, as my e-mail friend’s wife said last winter, that they would feel safe if Romney were in charge.

Readers who watched Tuesday’s debate can judge whether that still holds.

Most often, when President Reagan wanted to fill a senior administration position, including cabinet and sub-cabinet positions, top agency posts, and judicial positions, we would put together a binder filled with qualified candidates, as well as recommendations, from which the president would select a candidate.

So, I have a question: how, exactly, did and does Obama decide who to appoint to over 3,000 non-career positions in his administration, including his senior positions? How does his Office of Presidential Personnel recruit candidates? How does it process and collate resumes and present options to the president for selecting candidates for top posts? And if President Obama is not presented with a binder of qualified candidates, exactly how does he make his decisions?

Via News Busters.

Click the image to watch.

Via the Daily Rushbo.

Women’s activist Erica Payne argued that Romney sounded like he was looking for women to add to his harem and called the comment “moderately offensive,” though she did admit to agreeing with the concept of the program. Payne said that Romney used the “smoke screen” of the binders to claim that he hired a large number of women during his gubernatorial tenure.

O’Reilly continued saying Payne’s viewpoint was crazy, saying that liberals are being too partisan in going after Romney for a “good thing” he did just because he “used the word ‘binder.’” Murphy said many women’s rights groups are less interested in women’s rights than being “shill groups” for the Democratic party. Payne pushed back against Murphy and said she doesn’t want to be treated like a “second-class citizen.”