President Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said Sunday that the debate over the “Sesame Street” character Big Bird and Mitt Romney’s comment from last Tuesday’s presidential debate that he received “binders” full of women candidates for jobs in his gubernatorial administration are important to November’s presidential election.
“You’re right, Bob — we are not the ones that brought up Big Bird,” Cutter declared to host Bob Schieffer while facing off against Gov. Mitt Romney’s senior campaign manager Kevin Madden on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“Big Bird is important because that’s the only thing that Mitt Romney could point to as to how he’s going to reduce the deficit. Deficits are a big issue in this campaign.”
Cutter then found a way to work in Romney’s “binders” comment to the discussion.
“The governor’s running mate actually voted for two wars, two tax cuts that created these deficits,” Cutter said. “That turned a record surplus into deficits. The president has a detailed plan on the table to reduce those deficits — binders. Now Mitt Romney could only point to binders for an accomplishment towards women. He had a binder full of women. Now that’s important because it’s really symbolic of the governor’s policies.”
“You know, he wouldn’t say whether or not he believes in equal pay for women, the Lilly Ledbetter Act,” she continued. “He wasn’t honest about contraception. He supports the Rubio bill which puts bosses in charge of whether women have access to contraception on their employer plans. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which means insurance companies can go back to the days of charging women more than men just for health care. Now, that is not a women security, economic security, or health security agenda. And that binder is just symbolic of that.”