Presidential Debate Obama VS Romney Round 2

[Grumman]

What was with that bit where Romney suddenly decided he wanted to call Obama out on whether his pension has investments in Chinese firms?

Romney was trying to point out that where your money is invested does not always mirror your personal beliefs. In Romney's case it's because he had a blind trust, presumably specifically to avoid the conflicts of interest he was being accused of, while in Obama's case it's because he's not managing his pension fund himself.

[SirNitram]

If you beleive blind trusts are actually blind, or that Romney's is actually blind. It's worth noting Romney himself has agreed on the idea Blind Trusts are a 'ruse', and his is managed by a longtime associate and personal lawyer. ABC

[Lord MJ]

Seemed quite odd when the topic was immigration for Romney to so forcefully and suddenly make that Pension attack against Obama. Obama was like "WTF?"

[Dalton]

Romney did that more than once. He went from gun control to single parents in a heartbeat.

[Knife]

Pretty sure that attack was canned and meant to divert.


Also, I noticed Romney trotted out the 'Trickle down Government' again. Stupidest line ever. Besides which, he is using it as a pejorative, which would imply that the original 'trickle down economy' was bullshit too. Nice to agree with Romney on something.

[The Yosemite Bear]

so mittins how are you going to ship all of the government work to china?

[LaCroix]

Pretty sure that attack was canned and meant to divert.

Isn't that politics 101?

If you are asked a question that could potentially harm your electability. (Like immigration, drugs, war or gun control)

A.) Switch subject to a good one, in which you feel you have an upper hand over your opponent.

B) If you don't have any good arguments or no opponent, engage in long-winded blah-blah without substance.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Has anyone seen the Binders Full Of Women pics going around. That meme spread very quickly.

[Dalton]

Has anyone seen the Binders Full Of Women pics going around. That meme spread very quickly.

It's spreading so quickly that Reince Priebus has already tried to co-opt it to attack Obama (2nd term as an "empty binder").

[Sephirius]

Obama mentioned he would support a AWB, and expanded on that to comment on how cheap handguns are the main source of gun violence in Chicago.

I think he hurt himself a bunch with that. That sound was the undecided gun owners falling into the GOP camp.

[Mr Bean]

I think he hurt himself a bunch with that. That sound was the undecided gun owners falling into the GOP camp.

I don't see how there are undecided gun owners to even count on one hand. Considering Obama has done... nothing except expand gun rights so your conceal carry goes further than ever. Yet the NRA paints him as the lost twin brother of Jim Brady.

[Sephirius]

I think he hurt himself a bunch with that. That sound was the undecided gun owners falling into the GOP camp.

I don't see how there are undecided gun owners to even count on one hand. Considering Obama has done... nothing except expand gun rights so your conceal carry goes further than ever. Yet the NRA paints him as the lost twin brother of Jim Brady.

Because he specifcally mentioned being favorable to an AWB.

[SirNitram]

I think he hurt himself a bunch with that. That sound was the undecided gun owners falling into the GOP camp.

I don't see how there are undecided gun owners to even count on one hand. Considering Obama has done... nothing except expand gun rights so your conceal carry goes further than ever. Yet the NRA paints him as the lost twin brother of Jim Brady.

Because he specifcally mentioned being favorable to an AWB.

The idea this hurts him is laughable because the NRA has already been running on a naked conspiracy theory that he'll take ALL THE GUNS in his second term. If you are influenced by the NRA(And if you are, you aren't undecided; the man endorsed signed a PERMENANT AWB, the man not endorsed only expanded gun rights.), you already are against Obama.

[Flagg]

The idea that Willard is actually endorsed by a gun advocacy group is hilarious. Or it would be if the NRA weren't just another wing of the Republican Party.

[Dominus Atheos]

Okay, can someone explain the whole "binders full of women" thing to me, and why it's so offensive? Because I'm not getting it.

What he said was "I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. "How come all the people for these jobs are all men.” They said, “Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.” And I said, “Can’t we find some women that are also qualified?”

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."

Is it because he said "Women" instead of "Women's resumes"?

[Block]

Okay, can someone explain the whole "binders full of women" thing to me, and why it's so offensive? Because I'm not getting it.

What he said was "I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. "How come all the people for these jobs are all men.” They said, “Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.” And I said, “Can’t we find some women that are also qualified?”

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."

Is it because he said "Women" instead of "Women's resumes"?

It's just that the phrasing is bizzare for something that was obviously practiced. He could've just said they gave us a list full of qualified women, or any number of other sentences.

[Flagg]

This is why, DA. This is why.

[Terralthra]

Funnily enough, even such a putatively harmless story wasn't completely true:

Fact-checking Romney's "binders full of women" claim

In last night's second presidential debate, Mitt Romney inadvertently created an Internet sensation when he referred to the "binders full of women" he said he requested when seeking to hire women to top positions during his tenure as Massachusetts governor. Memes aside, Romney's essential claim - that he aggressively reached out to women's groups for help recruiting female employees after discovering most of the applicants were men - inspired some serious skepticism of its own.


Here's what Romney said when asked about his position on pay equity for women:

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."

In a report published shortly after the debate, David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix questioned the premise of Romney's assertion, arguing that the effort to employ more women in the Massachusetts government was actually spearheaded by a non-profit group called the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP), which was founded under the leadership of the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus specifically with that goal in mind.

According to MassGAP, the group approached the gubernatorial candidates of both parties prior to the 2002 election and asked each to sign a pledge committing to make their "best efforts" to "ensure that the number of women in appointed state positions is proportionate to the population of women in Massachusetts," to "select a transition team whose composition is proportionate to the women in the Commonwealth;" and to "meet with MassGAP representatives regularly during the appointments process."

Both campaigns made a commitment to this process, and following Romney's election, MassGAP says it "formed committees for each cabinet post in the administration and began the process of recruiting, interviewing, and vetting women applicants. Those committees selected top applicants for each position and presented this information to the administration for follow-up interviews and consideration for appointment," according to a written statement the group released on Wednesday.

Thus, Romney's suggestion Wednesday night that he organically noticed a dearth of women applicants when filling his cabinet and subsequently decided to "go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet," is misleading. The process had been spearheaded by an independent group and was already well under way by the time he was governor.

An adviser to the Romney campaign with knowledge of Romney's hiring process acknowledged that the former governor had been approached about -- and agreed to -- the pledge before taking office, and that the outside group had already been engaging in independent outreach efforts to solicit resumes for women who would be willing to work in government. The adviser, however, argued that Romney "actively sought" the binders out upon taking office because he wanted to make use of their resources.

"When Governor Romney came into office he undertook to fulfill his pledge. And while many of the top positions were filled by women who Gov. Romney found on his own through the transition process, through his business contacts, he also worked very cooperatively with the Massachusetts Women's Caucus and reached out to them to make use of them and their resources," the Romney adviser told CBS News. "We didn't have to accept those names, we didn't have to ask them for it to fulfill the pledge."

The adviser estimated that Romney ultimately hired about 10 women into those top positions, and that "roughly two or three" of them came through MassGAP's recruitment efforts, including one person who was simultaneously referred to the administration through business contacts. The recommendations were also helpful in filling other positions in the administration, according to the adviser.

MassGAP would not comment on whether or not Romney actively sought out the binders, but executive director Priti Rao told CBS News that the parties had previously agreed that regardless of who won the election, MassGAP would send them the resources -- ie, the binders -- they had gathered following the election.

"We proactively approached both candidates during the campaign," Rao told CBS News in an e-mailed statement. "Both candidates embraced our effort and assured us they would review the information we send. We then sent it [to Governor-elect] Romney after the election, as his campaign and MassGAP agreed we would do."

Jesse Mermell, executive director of the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus from 2004 to 2008, said in a conference call with the DNC: "To be perfectly clear, Mitt Romney did not request those resumes...Both campaigns made a commitment to this process. Then after the election, our group approached the transition team with the resumes, or the so-called 'binders full of women.'"

According to a study by the University of Massachusetts Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy using data provided by MassGAP, the percentage of women appointed to senior-level positions in Massachusetts government did rise - from approximately 30 percent prior to the 2002 election to 42 percent by 2004. Among those appointed were Kerry Healey, who became Romney's lieutenant governor (and also served as the liaison in the process with MassGAP) and chief of staff Beth Myers. Between 2004 and 2006, the study says women made up just 25 percent of Romney's 64 new appointments, lower than when he was elected.

Some have also pointed out that Romney's record hiring women to top positions during his tenure at Bain Capital was lackluster: According to the Boston Globe, there were no women partners at Bain during the 1980s and 1990s, when Romney was CEO.

By contrast, over a quarter of President Obama's initial cabinet appointees were women. In the current Obama administration, eight of 23 - or 35 percent - of the president's cabinet or cabinet-rank positions are women.

Hilariously enough, even if you believe Governor Romney's version, the implication is that after 10 years of University (1965-1975) to get a BA, MBA, and JD, and nearly 30 years in business (1975-2002) Mitt Romney didn't personally know a single woman qualified to be a cabinet official, and moreover, didn't even know where to look for some himself.

And his idea for helping women in the workplace is to give them more flexibility, so they can go home and cook dinner for their families. Because if you don't give them that flexibility, they can't afford to work. Really. He said that.

[Knife]

Yeah, the wife paused the tivo and ranted about that for a minute.

[Dalton]

Hmm. Aside from Josh Romney's Stare of Doom, I hear that Tagg Romney wanted to assault the President.

[Flagg]

Hmm. Aside from Jeremy Romney's Stare of Doom, I hear that Tagg Romney wanted to assault the President.

These are the spoiled fortunate sons who didn't fight in the wars because helping their dad get elected was more patriotic, right? Yeah, Obama should be real scared of a guy named Tagg.

[Dalton]

Nb it's Josh not Jeremy.

[weemadando]

Oh and Romney's son wants to punch Obama for calling his dad a liar. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on that bit of idiocy:

@TheTomasRios Yo, I got $20 that says Barack slaps the white off Tagg Romney's face if he tries any shit.

[Flagg]

First Obama bitchslaps him like the POTUS Pimp he is, and then the secret service fills him full of holes. I'm not seeing any downsides here.

[Lord MJ]

Interested to see how the polls look after they take debate performance in account. The latest poll shows Romney for this first time having a lead outside of the margin of error. With a 12 point lead among men, and even among women in the swing states.

The greatest gift Obama may have received is Romney's comments about equal opportunity for women. Romney's attempt to politicize Libya and having the moderator correct him is a mixed bag.