Debate Moves Women to Fore in Race for the White House
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Published: October 17, 2012
WASHINGTON — President Obama charged that Mitt Romney’s policies are economically threatening to women, as the candidates in their second presidential debate
on Tuesday night clashed repeatedly over who would best serve the
interests of the country’s largest and most critical constituency.
James Hill for The New York Times
Students at Hofstra watched the second presidential debate.
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With some polls offering sporadic evidence that Mr. Romney is gaining
support among women in the final weeks of the campaign, the president
seized every opportunity during their face-off at Hofstra University on
Long Island to assert that Mr. Romney, the Republican candidate, would
eliminate financing for women’s health services, block access to
contraceptives, oppose equal pay and undermine the economic recovery for
families in which women are the breadwinners.
“This is not just a women’s issue,” Mr. Obama said
during an exchange about equal pay for women in the workplace. “This is
a family issue. This is a middle-class issue. And that’s why we’ve got
to fight for it.”
Mr. Romney sought to defend his policies as better for women, denying
Mr. Obama’s accusations about contraception and insisting that his
record as Massachusetts governor is one of inclusion and equality. Even
as the debate concluded, Mr. Romney’s campaign released a television ad stressing that he does not oppose contraception and believes abortion should be legal in some cases.
“Turns out, Romney doesn’t oppose contraception at all,” a woman in the
ad says. “In fact, he thinks abortion should be an option in cases of
rape, incest or to save a mother’s life.”
But Mr. Romney’s rambling description of his efforts to hire women into
his administration as governor of Massachusetts became an instant
Internet sensation when he said he had “whole binders full of women” that he considered for jobs in his cabinet and agencies.
“I said, ‘Well, gosh, can’t we find some women that are also
qualified?’ ” Mr. Romney said during the debate. “And so we took a
concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could
be qualified to become members of our cabinet.”
The “binders full” comment was a hit on Twitter, quickly becoming a “meme” that generated a mocking Tumblr page and prompted a Democratic group to buy up the Web site www.bindersfulofwomen.com.
The group, American Bridge 21st Century, used it to list actions by Mr.
Romney that the group said were contrary to women’s interests.
The appeals to women came during a debate in which Mr. Obama and Mr.
Romney also sought to energize their bases. Mr. Obama, in particular,
delivered an aggressive performance that advisers hope will give his
core supporters fresh evidence that the president is ready to fight for a
second term.
Mr. Romney pressed his case for tax cuts, a favorite topic of
conservatives, and remained critical of the administration’s account of
the deadly attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, an issue
that Republicans believe gives them an advantage. And Mr. Romney
repeated his campaign mantra that the country cannot afford another four
years like the ones Mr. Obama has presided over.
But there was no mistaking the focus by the candidates on women. That
focus has increased dramatically in the final weeks of the campaign, as
the overall race has tightened nationally and in many of the most
important battleground states. Mr. Obama has long maintained a
double-digit lead among women in most surveys, helping him to overcome a
deficit among men.
A Gallup poll
this week suggested that Mr. Obama’s advantage had evaporated, though
other surveys — and Mr. Obama’s top strategists — disputed that finding.
As the debate on Tuesday made clear, neither campaign is taking the
support of women for granted. Mr. Obama, in particular, seemed eager to
make the case for his policies — and to criticize Mr. Romney’s — after
having been criticized by many high-profile women for not doing so in
the debate two weeks ago in Denver.
The president went out of his way several times to mention Mr. Romney’s
pledge to eliminate financing for Planned Parenthood. Mr. Obama argued
that that would not only affect women’s health services but would be an
economic burden on families during tough times.
“Millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood
for not just contraceptive care,” Mr. Obama said. “They rely on it for
mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings. That’s a pocketbook issue
for women and families all across the country.”
On the question of contraception, Mr. Obama said
that Mr. Romney would allow employers to decide whether to provide
contraception coverage in their insurance plans, an option foreclosed by
the president’s health care law. Mr. Romney denied that.
“I don’t believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone
whether they can use contraceptives or not, and I don’t believe
employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care
or not,” Mr. Romney said, using time from another question to try to
rebut the president. “Every woman in America should have access to
contraceptives.”
Mr. Romney sought to connect the interests of women to the broader issue
of the economy’s sluggish recovery, suggesting repeatedly that he could
do better for struggling families — and especially women — if he is in
the White House.
“There are three and a half million more women living in poverty today
than when the president took office,” Mr. Romney said. “We don’t have to
live like this. We can get this economy going again.”
But it was a question about equal pay for women that elicited the most memorable exchange of the debate. Mr. Obama focused on passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — the first bill he signed as president — which makes it easier for women to sue if they suspect they are not being paid fairly.
“So we fixed that,” Mr. Obama said. “And that’s an example of the kind
of advocacy that we need because women are increasingly the breadwinners
in the family.”
When it was Mr. Romney’s turn, he described the efforts he made after
being elected governor to make sure that women were well represented in
his administration. He said the early recommendations were mostly men,
and that he pushed harder to search for qualified women to serve.
That led to the “binders full” comment and to a description of his
willingness to be flexible about the hours that his chief of staff — a
woman named Beth Myers, who is now a top adviser to his campaign —
worked while raising children.
“She said, I can’t be here until 7 or 8 at night. I need to be able to
get home at 5, so I can be there for — making dinner for my kids and
being with them when they get home from school,” Mr. Romney explained.
“So we said, fine, let’s have a flexible schedule so you can have hours
that work for you.