Doesn't the binder story mean Romney believes in affirmative action?

[Hamlette]

Seemed that line impressed some undecided voters but shouldn't someone point out that he's against affirmative action.

You know he is lying.

[Wounded Bear]

1. That was going through my head while he was talking....

"Now he's for affirmative action?"

[Lefta Dissenter]

2. That's precisely what I said on FB at the time,

And that ALEC would be pissed.

[Deep13]

3. Yes, but he has probably changed his mind by now.

[gordianot]

4. Exactly some talking head will think about it and take credit tommorow.

Wait until they research all those women in Governor Romney's administration. He obviously free lanced this line and it will bite him.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

5. I Thought The Same Thing

I actually posted pretty much this exact same thing in another thread above. Yeah, I caught it too. I actually said, "Oh, so now you're for Affirmative Action?" to the TV screen.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

6. Except it appears it's total BS.

What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I've checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I've just presented it is correct -- and that Romney's claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.

I will write more about this later, but for tonight let me just make a few quick additional points. First of all, according to MassGAP and MWPC, Romney did appoint 14 women out of his first 33 senior-level appointments, which is a reasonably impressive 42 percent. However, as I have reported before, those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn't care about -- and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about -- budget, business development, etc. -- went to women.

Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office.)

http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/talkingpolitics/archive/2012/10/16/mind-the-binder.aspx

[moondust]

7. Good follow-up question.

Except that the story is false and it took place way back when he was Moderate Mitt.

Nevertheless, tonight he was proudly promoting affirmative action.

[SweetieD]

8. I was thinking the same thing.

I was also thinking why shouldn't the same apply to race? If you have say 50 candidates and they are all white, why not make an effort to ensure your pool is more diverse?