'Binders Full Of Women' — Watch Out For Those Posts!

I can't help myself, even knowing that everyone is focusing on that phrase Rmoney uttered, because it goes so directly to the kind of person he is. In case you didn't see it, here's the exchange from CNN. Rmoney was discussing the fact that when he won the governorship of Massachusetts, his staff had no problems finding large numbers of potential cabinet members who were white and male, but neither knew of nor could immediately find suitable women candidates for cabinet posts. Here's CNN's political staff:

(CNN) - As Mitt Romney explained, "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."

Binder, not full of women

I suppose there's some way Rmoney could have made the same statement in a way that was more insulting to women and their qualifications in general, but I can't think of it. It was, IMHO, a catastrophically bad choice of language.

Binders hold massive printouts of data. Binders hold listings of gargantuan computer programs.

Binders do not hold human beings.

But enough of that. How did Obama and Rmoney do?

Obama soundly dominated the debate, as in fact he had to, to recover from the Denver disaster. Obama is not a clean-your-clock sort of guy by nature, but within the limits of his personality, he faulted Rmoney for virtually every item that must have been on his list, and he did so despite Rmoney's efforts to approach, finger-stab and get in Obama's face. Not to mention Candy Crowley's efforts to short-change Obama time whenever possible...

Rmoney acquitted himself adequately, though he obviously found it more difficult tonight than in Denver to come up with lies fast enough, even though he had obviously memorized some. The lies just didn't flow. They seemed awkward. They seemed like... well... lies.

Obama did two things that he absolutely had to do: reestablished his creds with women, and no doubt won back some Hispanic voters he may have lost.

I heard that Obama also mentioned Planned Parenthood five times. Good. About damned time!

You all know I don't do horserace stuff based on snap polls, so I'll post a bit more tomorrow. Game-changer? maybe; I think it's too early to tell.