Romney, Obama woo women after debate

Republican presidential candidate, former Gov. Mitt Romney waves to supporters as he arrives for a rally at Tidewater Community College in Chesapeake, Va., Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012 / AP Photo/Steve Helber

CHESAPEAKE, Va. - Coming off a second presidential debate that featured a mini-debate on women's issues, all four major candidates argued today on the campaign trail that their party will provide better leadership on the issues women are most concerned about.

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Candidates fight for female vote

Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan focused on how the struggling economy is impacting female voters. "This president has failed America's women," Romney said at an outdoor rally at Tidewater Community College in eastern Virginia that drew over 3,000 people. "They've suffered in terms of getting jobs, they've suffered in terms of falling into poverty."

Romney spoke about meeting women on the campaign trail as he travels around the country and said he often asks them how he can help them in their daily lives. "What they speak about day in and day out is help me find a good job, or a good job for my spouse," he said. "And help my kid, make sure my children have a bright future, better schools and better job opportunities. That's what the women of America are concerned about and the answers are coming from us and not from Barack Obama."

Ryan, similarly highlighted the struggles women have faced in the economy as he campaigned in the northeastern Ohio town of Berea. "Five and a half million women are still struggling for work in this economy -- a half million more are unemployed today than when President Obama was sworn in. 26 million women are trapped in poverty today, that's the highest rate in 17 years," he said.

President Obama and Vice President Biden also followed up on the female focus. Obama, campaigning at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, suggested Romney's policies showed he was out of touch with women voters. Among other things, he cited Romney's plan to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and his hesitancy to support for the Lilly Ledbetter law, which made it easier for women to sue for equal pay.

"You don't have to wait for an answer from me. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill I signed into law as president -- the first bill," Obama said. He said Romney's top adviser "finally admitted, no, the governor didn't really support that bill."

Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie said after the debate that Romney had opposed the bill when it was introduced but would not repeal the law now. Gillespie backtracked Wednesday, saying in a statement released by the Romney campaign: "I was wrong when I said last night Governor Romney opposed the Lily Ledbetter act. He never weighed in on it. As president, he would not seek to repeal it."

Both Obama and Biden highlighted Romney's comments Tuesday night about approaching women's groups while he was the governor of Massachusetts and searching for qualified women to join his cabinet. "They brought us whole binders full of women," Romney said, introducing a phrase that instantly went viral.

Obama, discussing his plan to recruit 100,000 new math and science teachers over the next decade, added pointedly, "We don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women ready to learn and teach in these fields right now."

Biden, at a rally in Greeley, Colo., said Romney "started talking about binders" in response to a direct question about equal pay. "Folks, the idea he needed to go and ask where a qualified woman was, he just should have come to my house. He didn't need a binder. "

Rebecca Kaplan and Rodney Hawkins contributed.

[Dancing-in-the-Streets]

graylady1940 replies:

Except he lied. He did not seek out qualified women, the Women's groups brought him a binder of qualified women's resumes and twisted his arm to hire more women. To his credit, he did hire more women, but before the end of his term in office there were fewer women in these jobs than before he was elected.

If you think that your right to use birth control to plan your family is important than I urge you to not vote for any Republican. Every Republican in both houses of Congress have already passed numerous bills to interfere with that right. And Romney supported every one of those bills.
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Don't want anyone to miss this one! : )

[Yeshuratnam]

Why this attempt by Team Obama to separate women voters? Long, long before the Obamas were born, American women were enjoying political and social freedom. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized as early as in 1848 history's first 'Women's Rights Convention' in Seneca Falls, N.Y. The early feminists were individualists who drew inspiration from the Declaration of Independence and its principles of individual rights and responsibility. Whether it is Republican or Democrat administration, American women have always enjoyed social freedom. As for instance, President Bush's 19-year-old twin daughters were charged with underage alcohol offenses. American women enjoy more freedom than any other country in the world. So Obama's pretensions that he champions women's rights appear ridiculous. . The casual reference to 'binder' by Romney is being exploited by Team Obama with sadistic intentions. Americans have strong family ties and both men and women have free family discussion about election, and the attempt to divide men and women will only boomerang on Obama.

[LMills260]

Memo to candidates: If you want the women's vote, strongly support equal pay for equal work. Don't gut health care laws, allowing employers to make contraception choices for women. Don't appoint Supreme Court justices who will gut Roe v. Wade. Don't support calling a fertilized egg a "child", so that a woman is jailed as a murderer when she aborts her rapist's day-old "fetus". Am I being clear? To win women, support policies that help them. It's more that putting a bunch of women in your photo-ops.

[chrtucke]

Anyone that is supporting Obama at this point given the state our nation is laughable! Try just for a second to get beyond the problems in your trivial little worlds and use your brains for a minute! Are you going to support a candidate that has proven history of running successful businesses and creating jobs for both men and women or just completely ignore Mr. Obama's absolutely abysmal record over the last four years and actually sign up for more of the same?!?! He nor you can argue the numbers that he and his failed policies have created. Get real and use your heads not your hearts...however much you may like the guy just look at his record and if that doesn't convince you to change course then you deserve everything you get.

[LMills260]

Great points, Chrtucke! Let's return control to the people who created a global economic collapse. Let's let them create another horrendous collapse, so we can switch back to Democrats in 2016. Then we can demonize them again not fixing Republican distasters fast enough. Repeat.

[graylady1940]

I found Romney's attitude toward women to be totally demeaning with his comments about "binders of women" and letting the little woman on his staff have flexible hours so she could fix dinner for her children. All the audience member asked was would he support laws like the Lilly Ledbetter law. He did not answer the question, but inserted silver foot in mouth. I also found his demeanor toward the Candy Crowley extremely disrespectful. And I also saw the bully that he is come marching out throughout the debate.

After this performance, I'm still speaking and I'll tell you when you may speak to the President of the USA was the most rude and revealing comment he made all night. I'm the CEO here and and you can just follow my orders.

My goodness, even the arrogrant British found him to be more arrogrant then themselves. LOL

[chrtucke]

I suppose you didn't find Mr. Obama's interrupting to be rude or Ms. Crowley's obvious bias towards the president totally unprofessional??!?! Come on now...if you're going to have an opinion at least be objective about it and apply the same rules across the board.

[sam_osborne]

The last debate on the national stage reflects Romney's problem and it is not one of getting misunderstood as he tried to frame his last remark. Romney's problem is that he gets himself understood.

His words on the fair treatment of women came out as an insult by suggesting he wants to get the economy going so good the good-old-boys like him would even consider hiring a woman---imagine that, even maybe think of hiring a woman from a "binder" no less; what a guy.

The guy is not better when it comes to others who count on being full members of government of the people, by the people and for the people and the social fabric which it holds together.

On Latinos, Romney immediately came out with the word "undocumented."

And to start with, there was the young college student, Jeremy Epstein who asked the first question and was told by Romney that when he graduated he would give him a job. Epstein, said about talking to Romney after the debate, "I asked him if he's gonna give me that job in two years and he said 'Maybe.'"

After this and Epstein being put off by Romney rude interruption, Epstein says he is now leaning toward voting as a vast majority of young Americans already have, for Obama.

And these are only a portion of Americans that fall within and outside of the 47% that Romney says he does not care about.

[FP1970]

Vote for Obama so he can bring in Amnesty for illegal invaders and this will turn America
into a paradise for women, just like Latin America.

[FP1970]

The only women's issue no one seems concerned about is the continued mass immigration of 3rd world people who continue to import their misogynistic cultures into America at an alarming rate. You know, Shariah law, honour killings, the burqa...it's not politically correct to be worried about the Real threat to American women.

[LMills260]

Good news, FP1970. The things you're afraid of are illegal in the U.S. already. It doesn't matter who moves here. 10,000 new scary Muslims immigrating doesn't make honor killings legal.

The women's issues on the table are equal pay for equal work, whether employers can say your insurance doesn't pay for contraception, and adding Supreme Court justices to repeal Roe v. Wade.

[TurnofPhrase]

Is "woo" the best the headline-writer could do?

[SarahDMutt]

The worst part is how utterly condescending Mitt Romney is toward women.

He does realize women can vote, right?

[Dancing-in-the-Streets]

How some people fail to see that condescending attitude is beyond me! I don't see how any woman could vote for him!