The Best of Romney’s ‘Binders Full of Women’ Meme

Mitt Romney’s unfortunate phrasing touched off Internet hysteria following the Oct. 16 town hall presidential debate. The moment came when Romney stumbled over a question regarding pay equity, telling the audience how he used “binders full of women” to recruit female cabinet members as Governor of Massachusetts. The full remark courtesy of the ABC News transcript:

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equality for women?

ROMNEY: Thank you. And [sic] 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?”

ROMNEY: 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.

“Binders full of women.” That’s all it took to get the creative juices of the Internet flowing. We now present to you the best binder-inspired memes of the evening, many more of which can be found at bindersfullofwomen.tumblr:

See the full story at GovExec.com/Excellence