Obama's emphasis on "binders" is the best sign yet for Romney

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? …

To be sure, polls in many states still suggest Romney has to make up ground in the final weeks to score an electoral victory over Obama and perhaps as more data come in post-debate, the momentum will shift back in Obama’s direction. But if Obama is going to lose this election, this is sort of what you’d expect the final stages of his campaign to look like.