Last night’s Presidential debate was surprisingly good considering all the questions came from “undecided” voters. That was likely due to some of the voters not seeming to be undecided at all. Mitt Romney, naturally, said a few things at the debate last night that a lot of women took issue with. He couldn’t help himself. Romney’s “binders full of women” dodge* on the equal pay question instantly became an internet meme and his comment about women needing flexible schedules so they can get home to cook dinner for the kids was ill-advised. But for me and a lot of other women, the jaw-dropper was this one:

And you ask how — how are we going to do
that? And there are a number of things. He
mentioned good schools. I totally agree. We
were able to drive our schools to be number
one in the nation in my state. And I believe if
we do a better job in education, we’ll — we’ll
give people the — the hope and opportunity
they deserve and perhaps less violence from
that. But let me mention another thing. And
that is parents. We need moms and dads,
helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the —
the benefit of having two parents in the home,
and that’s not always possible. A lot of great
single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our
kids that before they have babies, they ought to
think about getting married to someone, that’s
a great idea.

May I just say how tired I am of conservatives constantly pushing marriage as a panacea and attributing lack of it to every social ill? Single moms cause gun violence now? Even worse, Romney wove that belief into a reference to Fast and Furious.

Because if there’s a two parent family, the
prospect of living in poverty goes down
dramatically. The opportunities that the child
will — will be able to achieve increase
dramatically. So we can make changes in the
way our culture works to help bring people
away from violence and give them opportunity,
and bring them in the American system. The —
the greatest failure we’ve had with regards to
– to gun violence in some respects is what —
what is known as Fast and Furious. Which was
a program under this administration, and how
it worked exactly I think we don’t know
precisely, where thousands of automatic, and
AK-47 type weapons were — were given to
people that ultimately gave them to — to drug
lords.

“Bring them in the American system”? Is he talking about the American-born children of unmarried parents? The segue from that to Fast and Furious and drug lords was just bizarre. It’s obvious that Romney is a clueless rich man who seems to be getting his ideas about how the commoners think by watching Fox News, but I’m wondering if that wasn’t some kind of oblique reference to Barack Obama’s own background of being raised by a single mother. Anyway, I’m just damn tired of guys like Mitt Romney kicking dirt on poor women while absolving themselves of the huge role they play in this country’s social and economic problems.

*Turns out there were binders full of information on well-qualified women, but Romney had nothing to do with them.