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The Best of Romney's 'Binders Full of Women' Meme

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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:

The basic concept:

A little more illustrative: 

Now we've got Bubba's attention:

A Dirty Dancing inspired edition: 

If you like it then you...

Hef's in the archives:

From the geniuses at GOBIAS Industries

The "Say Anything"

Applying the concept to 6th grade:

And finally:

Weird, wonderful...America. Much more at bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com

What'd you think of the debate? Share any good ones we missed in the comments.

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(Image via Dabjola/Shutterstock.com)

Mark Micheli is the Special Projects Editor of Government Executive, editor of Excellence in Government Online and former Program Manager of the Government Business Council. Prior to his current roles, he worked on national security and emergency management issues with the US Treasury Department. He’s worked as a political research analyst, a correspondent for the Des Moines Register at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland and is a graduate of the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs. He studied at Drake University where he has degrees in Magazine Journalism, Political Science and History.

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